


Heroes and Thieves

by kat777



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Background Relationships, Banter, Bickering, F/M, Falling In Love, Family, Friendship, Gen, Minor Jon Snow/Ygritte, Miraculous Ladybug AU, Secret Identities, Slow Burn, Superheroes, Superpowers, Very Minor Joffrey/Sansa, also a little Sailor Moon, kind of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-07
Updated: 2017-01-04
Packaged: 2018-08-13 10:08:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 53,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7972981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kat777/pseuds/kat777
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sansa's life had become an avalanche of disasters: there were birds melting out of the shadows, forcing her to confront the monsters they made of men; her partner in this fight was a red-eyed stranger, a boy barely older than her who she couldn’t seem to click with; her sister was determined to document the adventures of Westeros’ new superhero duo, often putting herself in danger in the process; her parents were growing increasingly alarmed by her streak of bizarre absences and poor grades; and somewhere out there lurked the mysterious villain Mockingbird, pulling the strings.</p><p>One would think Sansa had no time or energy leftover to argue with her brother’s best friend, but really, was it her fault Jon Snow was the most annoying person on the face of the earth?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Miraculous Ladybug is a French CGI children’s cartoon about the badass superheroine Ladybug and her partner Chat Noir. The basic premise of the show is ‘superhero duo vs. bad guy who turns emotionally vulnerable people into supervillains that do his bidding’ and I kept that but changed a lot of the details. For example, Sansa and Jon are superheroes, but they are not Ladybug and Chat Noir. They have different superhero names and powers and outfits. 
> 
> I also drew a little bit on the whole reincarnation thing Sailor Moon had going, but ultimately the past lives of the characters are (for the most part) irrelevant. Like there’s never going to be a point where Sansa or Jon suddenly remember something about their relationship in their previous life and they have to deal with that.
> 
> Anyways, you don’t need to have watched either Miraculous Ladybug or Sailor Moon to understand what’s going on in this fic, because anything important will be explained within the story. I just wanted to make it clear that a lot of aspects of this fic are based on those two shows. Also, the title is from the Vanessa Carlton song by the same name. And...obviously...GRRM owns ASOIAF, and D&D own GoT, and I am not any of those people.

Varys paced the length of the room carefully, quietly. Even restless as he was, he still had his common sense; it wouldn’t do for anyone to hear footsteps beneath the Red Keep, or else he would be short one hideaway. The very thought had him halting by his desk, stifling a sigh. Had it really come to this? Had things really gone so horribly wrong that he now had to hide from his own Little Birds?

 _Not all of them, at least,_ he thought to himself, crooking a finger through the bars of the cage on his desk for a tiny beak to nip at. _Baelish left me just enough to do something about him, the fool. He’s always overestimated his own cunning and influence._ The question was who to send this creature to. By the time Baelish had been through with his power-play, he’d had two left to his name. He’d already sent the first to wake the Young Wolf, but as for the second…

The Dragon Queen was a tempting prospect, to be sure. Varys would dearly love to see the thieving Mockingbird at her mercy. But to pair a wolf and a dragon… He couldn’t stake the survival of this city on the slim chance they would be able to play nice.  _Not with what’s coming._

Likewise, he couldn’t risk the Squid Prince betraying his friend as he had in the far-off past. It would have to be either the White Wolf or the Red Wolf, which left him a simple choice between doubling the Young Wolf’s strength and balancing it out with a shrewd mind. _Given who they’ll be facing, it only makes sense to choose the girl. This has always been her fight, her foe._

The bird bit at his finger as if to hurry him along, hard enough to draw blood.

“Alright, alright,” Varys said reproachfully, opening the door of the cage. “Go and wake the Red Wolf. She will join her brother in taking on the Mockingbird.”

The creature had barely disappeared through the re-purposed air vents when his other Little Bird fluttered in. It settled on his outstretched hand, which Varys then brought closer to his ear.

“Oh dear,” he said, once he’d made sense of the frantic chirping. “This is bad news, indeed.”

The Young Wolf had rejected the call.

Of course he had. What teenager would want to return to Westeros after getting a taste of freedom and independence in the big city?

Varys stroked a knuckle along the bird’s head soothingly. “There, there. This was my fault, not yours; I should have foreseen this. But what to do now? The Red Wolf will need a partner, and her other siblings are too young.”

Once they would’ve seen more than their fair share of war and death by the time they’d reached the age they were today, but that had been a different era, a different world. They had been different people. It was the here and now that mattered, and in the here and now, they were too young. Perhaps he would choose the Dragon Queen after all, unless…

It was risky. From what he’d seen, they got along even worse in this day and age than they had back then as children. Still, a wolf and a half-dragon that was also half-wolf made for a far less volatile combination than a wolf and a full-dragon. The girl would need someone skilled in direct combat, and the boy _had_ been the one to stand beside her in this fight the last time.

 _They are different people now,_ he reminded himself, but out loud he said, “Wake the White Wolf.”

He watched as his Little Bird flew off, a grim smile playing at his lips. “If they cannot get along, then they will learn to.” Somehow, the words did not comfort him as they were meant to. “This city cannot fall. We will all need it to survive what’s coming.”

* * *

 _It’s a dream like any other at first, though the setting is a little strange. Sansa has never loved the woods just outside Winterfell the way her siblings do; she has no desire to spend her holidays playing hunter or riding horses or climbing trees. Still, between the old, gnarled pines that surround her and the gentle murmur of the creek rushing along, it’s got the right atmosphere for a fairy tale, and she_ does _love fairy tales._

_It feels as though any moment now, a knight in shining armor will come riding up on a white horse—no, a prince. A prince with golden hair and an earnest smile on his face as he greets her. He will tell her he was supposed to stay with his guard, but he glimpsed her red hair from afar, gleaming brilliantly in the sunlight that filters through the treetops, and he was drawn to her against all reason like a moth to flames. He will tell her he heard her humming along with the birds overhead, and he envied them the chance to join her in song._

_All at once, those very birds fall silent and take flight. A doe drinking by the creek tenses, its head snapping in her direction for a moment before it flees. Squirrels, foxes, badgers—they all scatter._

_Sansa turns so that she might see what startled the doe, and then she screams. She screams because it’s clear to her now that this isn’t Sleeping Beauty, or Snow White, or even Hansel and Gretel._

_This is Red Riding Hood,_ she _is Red Riding Hood, and the Big Bad Wolf has found her._

* * *

_Jon’s heart pounds in his chest as he waits for the beast to lunge at him, his mind searching frantically for escape when there is none._

_Shaped like a wolf but too large to be one, fur as white as snow and eyes as red as blood, the creature is straight out of a spooky story children tell each other in the dead of night with the covers pulled over their heads._

_In a spooky story, he might actually stand a chance. In a spooky story, he might very well survive this encounter—if only to pass his terrifying tale on to others._

_This is no spooky story. There is no outrunning this nightmare._

And yet,  _he thinks with sudden clarity,_ isn’t this _all_ a nightmare?

_It must be, for the beast—the wolf?—hasn’t ripped his throat out yet. It just stands there, motionless, red eyes locked on Jon, leaving him more exposed then he can ever remember feeling._

_The creature doesn’t speak—Jon is sure of that much, at least, even if he’s not sure what the thing is or why this all feels more real than it should—but he swears he hears the words in his mind, in his soul._

Winter is coming.

* * *

Sansa woke, heart jumping like a startled rabbit’s, head aching as the words rattled around in her skull: _Winter is coming. Winter is coming._

“My math test is coming,” she said, trying to drown out the echoing. “So shut up and let me get back to sleep.”

There was a loud thump as Arya kicked the wall between their rooms. You _shut up_ , her kick said. (Arya’s kicks were very distinctive, and no one could understand them better than Sansa. They’d been sharing this room between them for nearly five years now, but she’d never complained. It was an improvement from the dark, dark decade where they’d had to share an entire _room_.)

Sansa let out an indignant huff and closed her eyes. Sleep came easy, and she didn’t dream again.

* * *

Sleep wouldn’t come, so Jon kicked off his covers and shuffled down the hall to the bathroom. It took him a few minutes to find the bottle of painkillers hidden beneath all the other junk they kept in the cabinet, and a couple more to get the cap unscrewed with his unusually clumsy fingers.

Once he’d managed it, he shook out the appropriate number of pills, reached for the cup on the corner of the sink, and—knocked it over. Of course.

Jon stared down at it for a while as if waiting for it to pick itself up. It didn’t.

“Well if you don’t care, why should I?” he asked it, vaguely relieved when it didn’t answer. He dry swallowed the pills and put the bottle back. The cup could stay there ‘til morning.

He made it four steps out the bathroom door before he remembered the look on Sansa Stark’s face when he’d failed to return a library book to the _precise_ location they’d found it. She’d wrinkled her nose in disgust as if he were some foul stench that plagued her, rather than her brother’s best friend whom she’d known since childhood and her current (though reluctant) partner in biology class.

Jon turned on his heel and marched back to the cup, fuming. Three days later and he was still fuming over an incident that most people would’ve forgotten about in the span of an hour. Maybe Robb was right when he said Jon needed to learn to just let things go.

 _Or maybe Sansa needs to learn to keep her wrinkled nose out of other people’s business._  

He knelt down and reached for the cup, and then he froze. Cup and headache and Sansa Stark’s wrinkled nose all forgotten, Jon stared at the tattoo on the inside of his wrist.

It looked just like the wolf from his dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In future chapters the different POVs will be longer, so changing back-and-forth doesn't feel as abrupt. Hopefully. I've changed my mind so many times in the past couple months about how many chapters this fic will have, but right now I'm thinking 19 (including this prologue and an epilogue). If I can lower that number without cutting out the parts of the story I really want to write, though, I definitely will.


	2. Lady and Ghost

Sansa was in the middle of a tug-of-war over the last of the fruit loops the next morning when she noticed it. In her shock her grip slackened, allowing Arya to reel in her prize. Bran and Rickon cheered as Arya waved the cereal box in the air, triumphant, but Sansa’s horrified eyes latched onto the inside of her wrist and stayed there.

There was a tattoo. A tattoo that hadn’t been there last night, a tattoo that she _hadn’t gotten_. At sixteen years old, she’d never smoked a cigarette or drank beer at a party or even made out with a boy behind the bleachers, and yet she had a tattoo on the inside of her wrist. She’d never even been inside a tattoo parlor! Not with Jeyne or Margaery or Joffrey, and certainly not with her family.

Sansa fought through her panic until she realized what must have happened: one of the little hellions she called her younger siblings must have snuck into her room last night and applied a tattoo sticker to her wrist while she slept.

A serene, unhurried air descended upon her as she dipped her fingers in her glass before scrubbing at the tattoo. Everything would be fine. These things were only temporary; all it would take was some water and a bit of effort, and then she could focus on pinpointing the culprit and making their life miserable for the foreseeable future.

She was Sansa Stark and she always followed the rules. It was silly of her to have thought for even a moment that she could possibly have had a real tattoo. Of course it was fake! Of course it would come off, of course it—

It didn’t even smudge.

She added more water and scraped her thumb across the area furiously, over and over—hard enough that it should’ve turned an irritated red and dead skin cells should’ve been flying everywhere—but though her wrist burned, there was no visible change.

Mom and Dad were going to kill her.

“Sansa?” She tore her eyes from the monstrosity on her wrist to find Bran staring at her. “Are you okay?”

Sansa instinctively clamped her hand over the tattoo. She knew she could trust Bran to keep a secret, but if Arya saw this thing, she’d go running to Jon Snow, who would undoubtedly rat Sansa out to her parents. And Gods forbid Rickon saw—he’d tell everyone from their parents to his after-school babysitter’s dog.

No one would believe her if she said it wasn’t her fault. Tattoos didn’t just appear on people’s skin out of nowhere, and yet this one had.

And she couldn’t for the life of her explain how.

“What’s wrong with your wrist?” Arya asked, and she actually sounded concerned. Then she ruined it. “Don’t tell me you somehow sprained it just now. Who sprains their wrist in a tug-of-war over Fruit Loops?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, my wrist is fine!” Sansa insisted, but her voice shot up an octave, giving away her panic.

Arya pushed back from the table, eyes locked on her prey. The sound of her chair scraping across the kitchen floor might as well have been a death knell to Sansa, who shot up from her seat and ran for it.

She wasn’t fast enough; Arya crashed into her and they landed in a tangle of limbs on the couch. Sansa considered complaining that it was stupid to tackle someone you thought had an injured wrist, but instead she grabbed a pillow and smacked her sister in the face with it.

Sansa fought as valiantly as any knight in a storybook ever had, but unlike Arya, she’d disliked play-wrestling as a child. She’d much preferred hosting tea parties for her dolls and whoever she could convince to join her—usually one of her parents or baby Bran.

She almost regretted that now. Maybe if she’d had more experience, she wouldn’t have ended up pinned beneath Arya, her only weapon all the way across the room.

“I could use some help here!” Sansa pleaded, looking at her little brothers with the same puppy-dog eyes she turned on Robb whenever she wanted something from him.

Bran gave her a sympathetic look in return but made no move to retrieve her pillow. Sansa expected even less than that from Rickon, since he’d been egging them on the entire fight, but he surprised her by calling for them to, “Wait, wait!”

Arya let out an exasperated huff but did as he said, and like a fool, Sansa let herself hope. Her hope was quickly dashed, however, when instead of going for the pillow, Rickon raced to the kitchen table and dragged a chair back over to where Bran was standing in the doorway, watching his brother’s antics in bemusement. He positioned it carefully so that it faced the couch at the perfect angle and then gestured for Bran to sit down.

Then he bounded over to the couch, and Bran dutifully watched from his assigned seat as Rickon smacked the cushions while hollering, “3, 2, 1… And we have a WINNER!”

“Thank you, thank you,” Arya crowed, looking obnoxiously pleased to finally be getting on with things, and Sansa had little choice but to stare up at the ceiling, resigned, as her sister inspected her wrist.

Jon would never let her live this down. She could already picture his reaction when he found out: he wouldn’t say a word, he wouldn’t even smirk at her, but she’d take one look at his raised eyebrows and _know_ he was judging her. Every time they got into an argument from now on he’d just look at her wrist and raise his stupid judgmental eyebrows and she’d have no comeback. They’d be old and grey in a nursing home and he’d still be mocking her about this damn tattoo.

And then Arya sighed in disappointment. “I was expecting some boy’s phone number that I could call whenever I feel like ruining your life.”

Sansa almost snapped back that Arya had no cause to be disappointed; the very _existence_ of the tattoo on her wrist had already ruined her life _forever_ , and she hadn’t even had breakfast yet. She restrained herself, though. Maybe Arya thought it was fake, and if that was the case, Sansa wasn’t going to be the one to inform her otherwise.

“What, what is it?” Rickon demanded, almost clambering over Arya to get a look at Sansa’s wrist.

Sansa struggled, but her sister held fast. “It’s nothing! We’ve been had!” Arya complained.

Rickon looked at Sansa in astonishment and expectation, as if she’d just turned his little seven-year-old boy world upside down and he was waiting for her to put it back to normal. “There _is_ nothing! Sansa, you tricked us!”

“What’s going on down there?” their mother called out from upstairs. “We’re leaving in five minutes, and each and every one of you had better be ready by then!”

Arya and Rickon climbed off her and ran back to their soggy cereal, grumbling to each other resentfully. Bran stayed, and when Sansa looked at him he got up from his seat and approached her. He grasped the arm she offered him and studied the inside of her wrist intently.

“There’s nothing,” he echoed in a hushed whisper. “But... It feels like there should be _something_.”

She could see the wolf tattoo so clearly. It reminded her of one of those minimalist posters Jeyne loved to create, so simple, just the profile of the head. All grey, fur and teeth and nose and ear, except for the eye.

The eye was yellow-gold, and looking at it made her head hurt.

* * *

Bran spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about his sister’s wrist that morning. He sat in the lounge area of the Red Keep, waiting for his mother to persuade the receptionist to let her meet with her husband, and thought about the way that particular area of Sansa’s wrist had seemed to shiver before his eyes. As if there ought to be something there besides plain skin, but it was being covered up.

 _By what?_ Bran wanted to know. _If there’s something there, what is it? What did Sansa expect us to see? Why is she the only one who can see it?_

This line of thought was a welcome distraction from the previous one: his mother had said she wanted to visit his father at work to drop off some files he’d forgotten, but Bran knew better, and trying to puzzle out the real reason had given him a headache.

So instead of fretting over the phone call his mother had gotten this morning right as they were about to leave, or wondering what could be so important that she’d abandoned her usual morning routine, Bran thought about that strange shiver.

 _Maybe it’s a force-field, or a glamour!_ He could ask Jojen about it at school, and Meera, too, when he hung out at the Reed’s house later.

If she was home. Some days she wasn’t, and wondering if she would be on that particular day always turned his stomach into knots. An oddly pleasant feeling most of the time, but today there was an anxious edge to it that wasn’t nice at all.

 _Everything_ was making him anxious. Who had called? His father? But then why hadn’t the receptionist known to expect his mother? If not his father, then who? And what on earth had the call been about? Why had his mother foisted Rickon off on Osha, and told Sansa and Arya to take the bus or walk?

She hadn’t been able to find someone to take Bran, but instead of quickly dropping him off at his middle school and _then_ going to the Red Keep, she’d come here first. His mother had always been so strict about being on time, and yet here she was, risking him being late to school! Risking _herself_ being late to a meeting with her clients, even! What kind of event planner showed up late to meetings? Not Catelyn Tully Stark, that was for sure.

“Bran,” his mother said, finally turning away from the receptionist. “I’m going up to the top floor to talk to your father. You’ll have to stay here, but I promise I won’t be long. Then I’ll drop you off at school.”

Bran cast a doubtful glance at the receptionist. He was a Lannister, wasn’t he? _Robb and Jon don’t like the Lannisters,_ _a_ _nd_ _Arya_ hates _them. She taught Rickon to_ _make barf noises_ _whenever someone mentions them. And J_ _offrey is always so rude to us, even Sansa, and he’s practically her boyfriend!_

The man sneered back, but his face instantly smoothed over when Cat threw him a chilling look over her shoulder.  _Definitely a Lannister._

“Will you be okay here?” Cat asked, focusing on Bran again.

He wanted to say no, but he knew it must’ve been _really_ important. His mother wouldn’t leave him with a Lannister if it weren’t important, he was sure. “I’ll be fine. I’ll stay right here!”

Right then, at that very moment, he meant it.

Later, his only comfort was that at least he hadn’t _promised_.

* * *

Jon was in a mood by the time he got to Biology. Ygritte and Grenn had spent the entirety of first period mocking him for trying to “show off” a “non-existent” tattoo, and Sam’s response to Jon shoving a wrist in his face had been to pat Jon on the shoulder and promise that no matter what the internet had told him, that was just a regular mole on his arm, not skin cancer.

What had Ygritte blackmailed Sam with to get him to go along with this charade? Probably his crush on Gilly, which nearly all of Sam’s friends knew about despite what Sam believed. In fact, the only one who didn’t know was Gilly herself, though Jon didn’t understand how that could be when Sam did things like stand stock-still and stare at her with hearts in his eyes.

Like he was doing _right now_ as she talked to Alys Karstark all the way across the room. Jon nudged Sam and waited for him to get a grip on himself. He didn’t, so Jon just sighed and gave him up as a lost cause.

With nothing to distract him, Jon went back to his brooding. He’d done everything short of literally carving his skin out, and yet the tattoo had remained in pristine condition, that red eye mocking him. He hadn’t even considered showing his mother this morning, but now he wished he had. Sure, he would’ve been grounded for the rest of his life, but at least he wouldn’t have had this uncertainty nagging at the back of his mind.

A rolling cart appeared in the doorway, soon followed by Alysane Mormont who called out, “Everyone to your seats!”

Jon dragged his feet all the way to the desk he shared with Sansa Stark, wondering if maybe he didn’t prefer sulking over the tattoo after all. Sansa was (of course) already in her chair, back ramrod straight, books and writing utensils laid out neatly in front of her, hands folded elegantly (elegantly!) and resting on her textbook. She didn’t bother to acknowledge his presence when he sat down beside her, only tensed.

 _Someone tell this girl to lighten up a little,_ he thought, though he did no such thing himself. _This is biology class, not the Great Sept._

As usual, Ms. Mormont wasted no time on greetings, instead getting right down to the order of the day. “Now that you’ve done some research to prepare you for next month’s lab, I think you’re ready for a crash course!” she said, ignoring both the cheers and the gagging she got in response. “The lab will be worth fifteen percent of your grade, and while I’m _sure_ you’ll _all_ be pouring over the textbook in preparation, that’s not the same as cutting something open. Think of this as your practice round; you can make all the mistakes you like with no penalties.”

She started unloading things from the cart. Sansa whimpered so quietly Jon barely heard her, her face turning an unhealthy shade of grey, and she eyed the bins Ms. Mormont distributed as if they were gateways to the very depths of hell.

Despite himself, Jon felt bad for her. “We’ll have gloves,” he muttered, turning his head away from her so she wouldn’t somehow get the impression he was trying to comfort her. It was one thing for him to feel bad for her; it was another thing entirely for her to _know_ he felt bad for her.

It was a waste of effort regardless.

“I know that!” Sansa snapped, and out of the corner of his eye he saw her lift her chin and look down her nose at him as if she were a queen and he a mere peasant. “I’m just worried you’ll mess this up for me.”

Any sympathy Jon felt immediately flew out the window. He whipped his head around to glare at her and said, “And I’m just worried _you’ll_ mess this up for _me_ if you faint halfway through!”

Alysane Mormont chose that moment to plop a bin down between them. “I’m afraid the only thing either of you will be messing up is my haphazard stitching and even worse knitting.” The color came flooding back to Sansa’s face as she stared down at the stuffed animal in the bin, but Jon had no time to enjoy her obvious embarrassment as the teacher then turned on him. “And it seems to me that out of the two of you, Septa Mordane’s star pupil is far less likely to faint in the face of this _gruesome_ task.”

It was Jon’s turn to flush red as all his nearby classmates giggled and snickered into their hands. The teacher moved on to the next desk without comment, and Sansa preened as she took everything out of the bin and set up their workstation.

Jon rolled up his sleeves. “Let’s get this over with,” he muttered, snatching up the toy pig and a scalpel.

“We have to read the instructions first,” Sansa lectured, but Jon wasn’t paying attention.

An idea had just occurred to him, the perfect solution to his problem. He could just show Sansa his tattoo! She never wasted an opportunity to lord his perceived failings over him, and annoying as her scathing sermon on the importance of following the school dress code would be, it was better than wondering if he was losing his mind.

Except no matter how obvious he made the tattoo, twisting his wrist this way and that as he hacked the poor baby pig open, Sansa still failed to react, too busy reading her oh-so important sheet of paper.

Finally, Jon gave up on subtlety and (carefully) shoved the scalpel towards Sansa, leaving the inside of his wrist exposed. “There, I cut the thing open, now you can check the gender.”

She glanced away from the sheet and did a double take, but though he saw her look directly at the tattoo, it was the mutilated corpse of their stuffed animal her eyes locked on to.

“You were supposed to check _before_ you went all Edward Scissorhands!” she hissed, peering down at the carnage in horror. “And you weren’t supposed to use the scalpel!”

Frustrated and disturbed and afraid, Jon fought to keep his calm. “The teacher _said_ to use the scalpel.”

“She said to use it for _the initial cut only,_ and then you use the scissors and the forceps for the rest,” Sansa spoke through gritted teeth.

“Oh, I see.” He lost his precarious hold on his temper. “Is there any reason Ms. Star Pupil didn’t warn me about any of this _before I did it_?”

“I told you to wait for the instructions. Maybe if you’d actually listened to me for once, you wouldn’t have removed a vital organ!”

Jon looked at the big purple yarn ball she was pointing to and vaguely recalled sweeping it aside impatiently the instant he’d opened the pig up.

“That is _not_ a vital organ,” he said stubbornly, grabbing the worksheet from her side of the desk and squinting at the diagram in the middle of the page. He wasn’t going to just take her word for it. Star of the sewing club she might be, and darling of the school band, and top of the one class they’d had together last semester (Literature with Willas Tyrell—it was a wonder she’d managed such high marks, since it had seemed to Jon that she spent more time mooning over the teacher than taking notes); she was still no better at the sciences than he was. “That’s just fluff—”

“It’s the liver, you idiot!” Sansa snatched the scalpel out of his hand and speared the diagram with it.

Jon batted her hand away and glanced back-and-forth between the purple yarn ball and the tear she’d made in the paper.

_Shit._

“He doesn’t need his liver anyway,” Jon said, trying to convince himself more than her. “He’s already dead.”

“He doesn’t need his—” Sansa’s voice rose to what could almost be called a screech, and she looked ready to strangle him. “ _We_ need his liver! It’s worth fifteen percent of our grade!”

“Is there a problem, Sansa?” Alysane Mormont asked mildly from the other side of the room. She was looking over Alys and Gilly’s finished worksheet.

Jon and Sansa glanced at each other and simultaneously scrambled to hide the liver from view. “No, Ms. Mormont,” they chorused.

They spent the next ten minutes arguing in whispers over whether or not they should try to put the liver back. Then they fought over the forceps, Sansa insisting that she was more dexterous and Jon would just mess everything up worse than he had already, Jon lamely retorting that Ms. Dexterous hadn’t even bothered to roll up her sleeves yet.

She went rigid at that, relinquishing the forceps to him and sitting there in stony silence for the rest of the period while Jon did all the work.

“Oh, come on, Jon. I saw her filling out your worksheet and helping you clean up,” Sam defended Sansa as they walked to their next class, Gym with Brienne Tarth for Jon and AP Calculus with Ellaria Sand for Sam. “At least this was just a practice run. You’ll have another chance next month!”

“Great, then we can mess up with a _real_ dead pig.”

“You know what I think the real problem is with you and Sansa?” Sam asked, determinedly ignoring his sarcasm. “Neither of you actually _try_ to get along. Maybe if you just try harder, she will, too.”

Sam’s wisdom went in one ear and out the other. “Easy for you to say—Ms. Mormont didn’t make her your partner. I’ll _never_ get along with Sansa Stark!” Jon vowed.

* * *

 _I’ll_ never _get along with Jon Snow,_ Sansa fumed to herself as she met up with Margaery and Joffrey on the way to music class.

She couldn’t believe he’d screwed up that badly. Even leaving aside the fact that the big purple yarn ball had been _easily_ identifiable as the liver if you gave it more than half a second’s consideration, what had he been thinking, just tossing out anything that got in his way? What would he do if she let him dissect a real fetal pig next month?

Sansa fervently hoped he never became a doctor. Put him in an operating room and the patient would probably be wheeled out missing their intestines.

“ _Ms. Dexterous hasn’t even_ _bothered to roll_ _up her sleeves,"_ he’d snapped at her, as if he thought her too lazy to do any work. As if she made the honor roll every year by being _lazy_. As if Willas Tyrell had just _handed_ her a damn near perfect score in Literature last semester, or as if some magical force was responsible for her impeccable stitching and she unfairly got the credit.

Sansa wasn’t _lazy_ , and she didn’t coast by on other people’s hard work. She could have and _would_ have dissected that stuffed pig herself (and she wouldn’t have messed it up!), if it weren’t for this damn tattoo.

What if her siblings had lied to her? What it wasn’t invisible, after all? What if Jon Snow saw it and ruined her life because that was just the kind of obnoxious, interfering jerk he was?

“Sansa? Sansa, what is _wrong_ with you? Have you gone deaf or something?”

Sansa started and looked at Joffrey. He stared back at her with obvious impatience, like he’d just told a joke and she’d missed the cue to laugh.

Margaery tucked her arm through Sansa’s. “I had to dissect a fetal pig last semester. I promise it’s not as bad as you’d expect! Not worth all this dread, that’s for sure.”

She winked at Sansa, who pushed Jon Snow out of her mind and gratefully took the excuse she’d been given. “I just keep imagining how awful it will smell—my sister dissected a frog in summer school, and she said it was worse than a garbage dump.” Of course, Arya had been grinning ear-to-ear as she’d told Sansa that, and she’d immediately followed up her declaration with the hope that she’d be able to dissect more dead animals next year.

“That’s nothing,” Joffrey scoffed. “My private tutor had me cutting open all kinds of animals last summer—frogs, fetal pigs, starfish, even a cat. If your sister thought the frog smelled bad, she never would’ve been able to handle the cat. It’s certainly not for squeamish and fainthearted girls.”

Sansa distinctly remembered Myrcella telling her that Joffrey had fainted not a moment after cutting open the cat and had to be carried out of the lab by the staff, but she chose not to mention this.

(She also chose to ignore the sinking feeling in her gut that Joffrey meant to insult her more than he did her sister.)

“Well, you have a couple weeks before you really have to worry about it, so let’s not dwell on it for now,” Margaery said, and she squeezed Sansa’s arm comfortingly. “Music starts in a couple minutes, and I’ve been looking forward to today’s lesson for ages!”

“Oh, me too! I’ve been practising the piece at home for weeks now, and I looked it up on YouTube and found a bunch of different versions and put them on loop,” Sansa gushed, leaning into Margaery.

“I looked it up, too! Did you hear the one by the professional orchestra from New York—”

“I did! And I almost wish I hadn’t, because it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard and I know I’ll never be able to measure up. Every time I practised after that I couldn’t stop thinking I’d ruin the whole thing,” Sansa confessed.

Margaery opened her mouth to reply, but Joffrey, perhaps feeling left out, interjected, “You won’t ruin anything. There’ll be a whole band playing, and five other flute players besides you. If you mess up it won’t even matter—you play so quietly everyone drowns you out anyways.”

Sansa fought to keep her expression neutral, reminding herself that boys didn’t like girls who got their feelings hurt over every little thing. Boys liked girls who smiled at them and laughed at their jokes and had a good time with them. And Joffrey _was_ joking, of course he was. He was smiling at her, after all, so he couldn’t have _meant_ to insult her, right?

Sansa smiled back. It felt like a wobbly smile to her, but it must have been steady enough, because Joffrey seemed satisfied by her reaction.

They didn’t talk at all as they entered the music room and took out their instruments. Several of her classmates were already set up, but Sansa didn’t feel rushed. The teacher was usually a couple minutes late, and even when she was on-time, she waited a while to start the lesson.

Shae slipped into the room and made her rounds, greeting all her students and checking off names on her attendance list. Sansa had just attached the foot joint of her flute to the body when Shae reached her and Margaery.

“I hope you girls are ready for today’s lesson. I picked out this particular piece just for the flute section!” she said, winking at them playfully.

“We’re ready!” Margaery assured her. “We’ve been looking forward to it since we saw it on the syllabus, right, Sansa?”

“We have,” Sansa agreed, and she tried to sound enthusiastic, but Joffrey’s words were echoing in her mind:

_Everyone drowns you out anyways._

Shae must’ve seen something in her expression, because she looked directly at Sansa when she said, “I know you’ll both do brilliantly.”

The pit in Sansa’s stomach seemed to ease and she managed a real smile for Shae, who squeezed her shoulder gently before moving on to the clarinet section.

Margaery arranged their sheet music on the stand while Sansa lifted her flute and positioned her fingers on the proper keys. She took a few deep, slow breaths and then played the first bar as quietly as she could, not wanting to bother anyone still setting up.

“ _Everyone drowns you out anyways,"_ he’d said. As if she were a little bird chirping as a dog barked at her. A security guard had called her that once when she’d visited Joffrey at the Red Keep. She’d thanked him for holding the door open for her and he’d called her a pretty little talking bird.

Her finger was on the wrong key. She moved it to the right one and hoped no one had heard the mistake.

“ _Five other flute players besides you,”_ Joffrey had said. Like Margaery.

Margaery, who somehow managed to be poised and bold at the same time, playing as close to flawlessly as anyone could. Leading their section, keeping them at the right tempo, the right volume.

Margaery, who had taken Sansa under her wing and encouraged her to take all these senior classes even though she was a junior, and comforted her when she’d confessed to feeling out of her depth surrounded by so many older and smarter students.

Margaery, who seemed to turn Joffrey’s head more often than Sansa these days without even trying.

“ _If you mess up it won’t even matter,”_ he’d said, and wasn’t that just one step away from, _Y_ _ou_ don’t even matter?

It hit her so suddenly and intensely that she let go of her flute, biting back a cry of pain as her wrist _burned_.

“ _Sansa!_ What’s wrong?” Margaery clutched at her shoulder, and Sansa noted with distant relief that she’d caught the flute.

Shae abandoned her conversation with one of their classmates and rushed over. “What happened?” she asked, picking up the water bottle Sansa kept on the floor beside her.

Sansa took the bottle gratefully and drank from it like she’d been wandering in the desert for days. It didn’t lessen the burn in her wrist, but it helped her think clearly.

It was her right wrist that hurt; specifically, the inside of her right wrist.

Specifically, the exact location of that gods-forsaken tattoo.

“She dropped her flute, and she looked like she was in a lot of pain,” Margaery explained to the teacher. “I think she needs to go to the nurse.”

Go to the nurse, and then what? Explain that her invisible tattoo was trying to kill her? No. “No, I’m fine. I don’t need the nurse,” she protested.

Shae touched the back of her hand to Sansa’s forehead. “You’re far too pale, Sansa, and your skin is cold. How do you feel?”

She wanted to complain that Margaery and Shae were making a scene, and what if Joffrey saw and thought her _fainthearted_ , but she realized Shae was right. She _was_ cold. The burn in her wrist was the kind you got from ice, not fire.

“I... I think maybe you’re right. I’ll go to the nurse,” she said, though she had no intention of doing so. Anything to get out of here, to get away from people and their questions that she couldn’t answer.

Sansa shoved her water bottle into her bag and took her flute from Margaery, who watched her anxiously. It felt like the entire class was watching her—except Joffrey. He was laughing with one of his awful friends, the son of one of some awful politician who worked for Joffrey’s father.

“You’re not going on your own,” Shae said, her tone unusually stern.

Joffrey finally seemed to notice what was going on, and like a gallant knight, he offered to take her to the nurse’s office. “Unless you think she’s going to throw up,” he added, and Sansa shrank back in her seat, wishing she could turn invisible like her tattoo. “I just had this shirt dry-cleaned.”

Shae eyed him with thinly veiled disdain. “No, I’m afraid you need all the practice you can get! Margaery will take her; she and Sansa can afford to miss the lesson.”

Later, Sansa would swear on the Seven that she hadn’t felt even a glimmer of satisfaction at the sour, dumbstruck expression that came over Joffrey’s face, as if someone had just shoved a piece of lemon in his mouth.

In reality, it was the best thing that had happened to her all day.

“I don’t want Margaery to miss the lesson, either. I’m well enough to go on my own,” she said, disassembling her flute with steady hands and returning the parts to their case to prove her point.

“Oh, I don’t mind at all—” Margaery began, but Sansa interrupted her.

“You should stay, and then you can help me practice later.”

Shae pursed her lips, but Sansa’s act must have been convincing, because she gave in. “Leave your stuff here so you don’t have to carry it, at least, and Margaery can bring it to you later.”

That was all the permission Sansa needed. She threw Margaery and Shae a smile over her shoulder as she left, to soothe their worry, and told herself not to be offended that Joffrey had gone back to ignoring her the second it was clear he wouldn’t get to play the hero.

The pain seemed to grow as she walked with careful, measured steps to a usually empty girl’s bathroom on the other side of the school. The room was empty, all four of the stalls swung wide open, and that was good because she was gasping for breath now as the pain climbed up her arm, through her shoulder, spreading _everywhere_ —

She staggered into the nearest stall and locked the door with shaking hands, and then she finally tugged her sleeve down to look at the tattoo.

It _glowed_ , and Sansa shut her eyes against the blinding light. Shudders wracked her body, and she realized suddenly that she’d never felt this terrified in her entire life. Something was _changing_ and she didn’t know how, or why, or how to stop it—

It stopped on its own. The shudders subsided, the pressure on her eyelids faded, but she couldn’t bring herself to open her eyes yet. With her vision closed off her body automatically turned to her other senses, and she nearly gagged at the smell that hit her when she breathed in deep through her nose. Gods, had the last person in here not flushed the toilet? Had the janitors not cleaned this bathroom even once since the start of the semester?

Underneath that awful stench, she could smell the cheap floral-scented soap the school provided the students, the tang of an orange peel that someone had thrown away, and dried blood that was probably from a used tampon. She hadn’t smelled any of this coming into the bathroom.

It wasn’t just her nose that seemed to be working overtime, either. She could hear water dripping in the pipes overhead, the whir of the ventilation system—even the distant voice of Ellaria Sand explaining some complicated math formula to her students.

Before she’d been too frightened to open her eyes; now she was too frightened to keep them closed. Something had changed and she had to know what.

It took a couple seconds for her eyes to adjust, for the spots to vanish. Her optometrist had always said that her vision was excellent, and she’d never had reason to doubt that until now. Everything was so _clear_ all of a sudden. She could see every little scratch on the stall door, every little bump.

And she could see the thin grey material that covered her from neck to toe. She’d never once encountered this material in her sixteen years of shopping for clothes, sewing tears in fabric, and sighing over outrageously expensive outfits on the internet—the closest thing was the spandex jogging shorts her sister had once bought from an athletic store.

She had a belt, too, and strapped to the belt was a long, thin case that looked like it contained some sort of baton. _Good,_ she thought to herself. _I’ll need a weapon once I get my hands on whoever did this_ _to me!_

That furious determination drove her to yank open the door and march out of the stall, not even noticing that she’d busted the lock in the process. Where she meant to go, what she meant to _do_ , she wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter; she caught sight of herself in the mirror and that was it, nothing else existed. Nothing but the horrifying blood red color her hair had deepened to, and the grey mask shaped liked a figure-eight that framed her eyes, and _her eyes_ —

She screamed, and the sound was so loud that she didn’t hear the footsteps approaching the bathroom until it was almost too late.

Fight or flight? It was no contest. She couldn’t let anyone see her like this.

Her mind raced despite her panic, or perhaps because of it, quickly dismissing the vents as a viable escape route and zeroing in on the windows instead. This bathroom was at the back of the school on the first floor, so the drop would be nothing, and she’d end up in the wooded area by the creek. At this time of day the only people she’d encounter there were fellow students cutting class—not the kind of people she hung out with, and even if they knew her, they probably wouldn’t be in any state to recognize her.

The real problem was reaching the windows in the first place. She burst into the stall she’d just left, stood on the toilet and hoisted herself up with surprising ease. Balancing herself on top of the stall was easy, too; she didn’t teeter back-and-forth at all, somehow instinctively knowing how to position her body, how to shift her weight to maintain her equilibrium.

The window had a handle, but it didn’t even budge when she tried to turn it. Sansa cursed whoever had designed these things to prevent kids from doing exactly what she was attempting to do. She could check the other windows on the off-chance one of them was unlocked, but the sound of footsteps was drawing closer and closer, accompanied by a gaggle of voices, and she knew she had to go _now_.

Something snapped when she really _pushed_ , and the window popped open.

She forced her way through and hit the ground running. 

* * *

Bran sat in the cafeteria at lunch with Jojen and tried not to think about what he’d seen earlier that morning. _Who_ he’d seen. What they’d said to him.

He never should’ve wandered off, too anxious to sit still. He never should’ve climbed that cordoned off staircase in the very furthest corner of the Red Keep. He never should’ve poked his head through the trap door at the top, to see what was making those strange noises.

He should’ve known better.

More than that, he should’ve stood up for himself. For his family. He was a _Stark_ , and Starks were wolves, brave and loyal and true. All the old legends said so.

 _But I’m not any of those things,_ he thought miserably, his shoulders slumping. _If I were, I_ _would’ve told them my father is a great man, kind and smart, and Robert would never fire him_ _no matter what Cersei says_ _. I would’ve told them my mother is so clever and determined, she’d find_ _a_ _way around any sabotage. I would’ve told them Robb is too far away for their claws to reach, and my parents would never_ _ship_ _Arya and_ _Rickon_ _off_ _like unwanted baggage, and Sansa loves us all too fiercely to ever turn against us._

 _I would’ve said I’d never,_ ever _let them hurt my family._

He hadn’t said any of that. He hadn’t said a thing. He’d just nodded, and they’d let him go. And he’d climbed back down the ladder, the stairs, through the halls, and he’d found his mother waiting for him. He’d lied to her and told her he’d gone to the bathroom, and she’d believed him, and then she’d dropped him off at school.

He’d sat through his morning classes, his mind cycling endlessly through what had happened, getting stuck on the most bizarre and insignificant details like a broken record: the rust creeping along the staircase railings; initials carved into the wood of the trap door; a bird on the attic’s only windowsill, high up above them; a pair of winter coats folded over the back of a chair, lined with fur that looked real.

Trapped in that loop, Bran didn’t notice the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He didn’t notice Jojen’s mouth drop open in horror, his eyes locked on something over Bran’s shoulders.

But he _did_ notice when the screaming started, and he turned around just in time to see Jaime Lannister catch sight of him. Only, he didn’t look quite like the Jaime Lannister Bran had seen mere hours ago.

“ _There_ you are.”

Bran scrambled out of his seat, wanting nothing more than to run so far he’d never have to see that gold cloak or that manic grin ever again.

He was too slow.

“The things I do for love,” Jaime Lannister said, and clamped his hand down on Bran’s shoulder. 

* * *

Jon blindly ran alongside the creek with no idea where he was headed; rational thought had carried him out the window of the boy’s locker room before his classmates could see him with freakish red eyes and full-body spandex, but it had abandoned him immediately afterwards.

How had this happened? _Why_ had this happened? What had he done to deserve a tattoo suddenly appearing on his wrist and transforming him into this— _whatever_ he was?

His ears picked up the warning sounds of someone approaching, but caught up as he was in his panic, they didn’t register in his mind. He swerved between two trees and collided with the person head-on. Under normal circumstances, the first thing he would’ve done upon getting to his feet was help up whoever he’d run into, and then he would’ve apologized and acknowledged that he hadn’t been watching where he was going.

These were not normal circumstances, and the girl he’d run into was far from normal herself. It wasn’t the unnatural shade of her eyes or her braided hair, and it wasn’t her bizarre outfit; it was the fact that her overall appearance reminded him so strongly of his own.

The thought must have occurred to her, too, because though she flinched upon meeting his red-eyed gaze, she was quick to throw around accusations. “It was _you_! You did this to me!”

“ _You_ did this to _me_!” he countered. _How_ she’d done it he had no idea, but that was the point: he had no idea what was going on, she did, and she was going to _explain it to him_.

“I did not!” she snapped back, which did not explain things in the least. “This is clearly your fault!"

“Oh, my fault, _really_? And how is any of this my fault?”

“I suddenly transform into a freak of nature, and then a freak of nature boy runs me down in the woods looking like my co-star in a horror movie? This isn’t rocket science!” She threw her hands up in the air, possibly to emphasize her frustration, possibly to summon a demon from hell. Could’ve been either. She looked more than capable of both.

“And it’s also not a movie!” Jon shouted, his temper boiling to the surface. “This is my actual, real life that you’ve ruined, with your— Your—”

“My _what_?” she demanded, hands falling to her hips now. “Explain to me exactly what it is you think I did to you!”

“You changed me into a ‘freak of nature’, as you so kindly put it, with your—your witchy voodoo magic!” he settled on before she could interrupt again.

“My _witchy voodoo magic_?” she repeated in disbelief. Somehow it sounded less reasonable coming out of someone else’s mouth.

Jon stood his ground anyways. “Yes.”

She surveyed him for a few moments, her intense scrutiny unnerving him far more than her wolf-like eyes, before finally sighing and dropping her defiant stance. “Look, I didn’t _do_ anything to you, okay?” she said, looking completely done with him and the world in general. “I don’t know what’s going on, and you clearly don’t know anything at all, so just— Just go away!”

As if he’d never heard _that_ before. He opened his mouth to tell her she needed better insults, but he never got the chance.

“Yooooo, _dude_!”

As one, Jon and the strange girl whipped around to face the intruder. Oh, gods. It was that freshman who came to every fencing practice to cheer the members of the Night’s Watch on, his life was _over_ —

“Are you guys superheroes?” the kid demanded.

“ _What_?”

“You guys are superheroes,” the kid concluded.

Jon noticed the paper bag in his hands and snatched it from him immediately. “Don’t do drugs!”

“And don’t cut class!” the girl added.

The kid frowned at his empty hands and then nodded thoughtfully. “Definitely superheroes. Buzz kills, too.”

“Look, we’re not superheroes, and you need to get to class!” She grabbed the kid by the shoulders and turned him around until he faced the school. “Go!”

He glowered at her over his shoulder but obeyed. “Fine, then, I’m gonna tell everyone about the weirdos I found with the bag of weed, cos-playing as superheroes in the woods!” he yelled at them once he was a good distance away. “And when the cops show up, don’t blame me!”

Jon dropped the bag like it was on fire. The girl picked it up and peered inside for a second before sighing in relief.

“It’s just a sandwich and some brownies,” she said, handing the bag to him so he could see for himself.

He took the brownies out and sniffed at them suspiciously. Then he dropped them back into the bag. “Brownies,” he agreed. “Fudge. What a little brat!”

“A brat who left us fudge brownies,” she pointed out. “Now I almost feel bad.”

She looked a lot less freaky when she smiled. When she smiled, she didn’t seem at all like she was about to summon a demon from hell.

“You don’t think he’s right, do you?” he asked, only half-joking. “About us being superheroes?”

“What kind of question is that?” Her smile turned into a frown, and he felt a little twinge of regret that he promptly ignored. “Of course we’re not superheroes!”

“Then what are we?” He pulled the sheath from the belt around his waist and showed her the blade inside. “I don’t know what’s going on. You don’t know what’s going on. But all of a sudden I can hear better, see better, smell better. I can run faster and jump higher. I even have a sword, and you have one, too.” He nodded at the sheath at her hip.

“I think it might be a baton, actually. There’s no handle,” she said, carefully angling the sheath towards the ground so she could take out whatever was inside. “But all that other stuff you were talking about, it’s like that for me, too—”

She stopped abruptly, she and Jon both staring at the wooden flute in her hands. Apart from the material, it looked no different to Jon then the flute Sansa was always practicing whenever he came over to hang out with her family.

Sansa’s flute-playing was the one thing he’d freely admit to liking about her, but this wooden instrument looked ridiculous next to a steel sword.

“Maybe not a superhero, then. A lady,” he suggested, after a few seconds of mock consideration. “Though I think you might need to turn that flute in for a harp if you want to be a real lady from the old days.”

“What are you, then, a ghost? You better hope that suit’s machine washable,” she said, eyeing it with scorn and clutching her flute to her chest.

Jon had been far more worried about how easy he was to spot in such a glaring shade of white, and her taunt actually gave him an idea—he could rub dirt on the suit to try and camouflage himself, though hopefully he’d figure out how to turn back to normal before that became necessary.

The girl didn’t wait for a response. “You know what? I don’t even care. I don’t care about this flute and I don’t care if I _am_ a superhero. I certainly don’t care who _you_ are. Because I’m going to fix this, and once things go back to normal, none of that will even matter.”

“I don’t care who you are, either, lady!” Jon retorted, stung despite himself. “And I can’t wait until I never have to see you again!”

“So glad we agree on _something_!”

This was the point where they each came to the conclusion they had absolutely no clue how to change back to normal, which inevitably led them right back to where they had started: taking their frustrations out on one another and doing nothing to actually solve their problems.

Or it would’ve been, if not for the screaming.

Jon dropped the paper bag he was holding, and the girl asked, “What was that? What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” Jon was about to say, but then he had an idea and instead suggested, “Let’s see for ourselves.”

“I’m not going out in public while I look like—” She caught on to what he was doing. “Oh.”

Jon didn’t respond, too busy lifting himself up to the next tree branch. She chose a tree a few feet away from his and followed suit.

The trees out here weren’t very tall, unfortunately, so he couldn’t see past the school. The screams seemed to be coming from farther away than that, and he could hear more and more people joining in.

Jon kicked off from the trunk and swung to the next tree as if he were Tarzan, a thought which frankly thrilled him to the point where he would’ve been embarrassed to admit it to twelve-year-old Bran, let alone Robb or Theon or (Gods forbid) Ygritte.

“What are you doing _now_?”

He looked back at her. “I’m going to see what’s going on—I’ll have a better view from the roof of the school. Those people sound terrified, and just because we’re not superheroes doesn’t mean we can’t help.”

The exasperation on her face vanished instantly, replaced by uncertainty. “But—”

“Stay here if you’re so worried about _being seen in public_ , but I’m going,” he said, and continued on his way to the school, not bothering to look back again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These poor kids could really use a magical talking animal companion to help them out... But I'm not going to give them one, so just they'll have to make do.
> 
> Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, and thank you so much for reading!! (And for leaving comments/kudos, or subscribing/bookmarking!)


	3. Kingslayer

Even after all the impossible things that had happened today, Jon was not the least bit prepared for the spectacle taking place in front of the Great Sept of Baelor.

A dozen knights in gold cloaks chased panicked civilians around the square, while a man who seemed to be their leader stood on Baelor’s shoulder, looking down at the chaos below him and shouting orders. As Jon watched, one of the knights caught an old man and dragged him to the base of the statue, forcing him to his knees. The leader leaped down with ease, as if the drop were five feet instead of fifty, and unsheathed a sword.

Jon ran to the edge of the school’s roof, searching for a ladder or a fire escape, knowing deep down he’d never make it in time. But he didn’t need to; as he dropped down onto the fire escape, he glanced towards the square again and froze in his tracks.

He’d been expecting an execution, a beheading. Instead it seemed to be a knighting, and when it was done the old man was gone and a knight in a gold cloak rose up in his place.

It was far too late to help that man, but Jon raced down the fire escape anyways. The moment he burst onto the school’s front lawn, he was bombarded with exclamations of shock and people pointing and gawking at him. He ignored them all.

It was too late to help that old man. It wasn’t too late to help everyone else.

As he drew closer, he spotted a knight advancing on a little girl. She roared and waved a stick at him as if trying to frighten him away, but it didn’t work. Still, the girl didn’t run. Even when the knight drew his sword, she stood her ground.

Jon ran faster than he ever had in his life, tackling the knight to the ground. He rolled to his feet and kicked the sword away from the knight’s already searching hands, and then planted himself firmly in front of the little girl.

“Run for the school, they haven’t reached it yet,” he told her, but she didn’t move. He glanced over his shoulder at her, only remembering his red eyes at the last second. She didn’t even flinch. Maybe she was too frightened to notice.

He tried to sound soothing as he said, “I know you must be scared, but the teachers will help you. You’ll be okay.”

“I can’t,” she said fiercely. “I can’t leave my nephew.”

A little face peeked out from behind her legs, huge dark eyes staring up at Jon in fear. He recognized that face from a photo he’d been shown in biology class. It’d been the first day of the semester and Sansa had asked Alysane Mormont if she’d had a good maternity leave—the Starks and the Mormonts had always been close, along with the Snows, which was why the teacher had shown Sansa and Jon a picture of her fourth-grader and her toddler.

And if this girl was the toddler’s aunt... _Lyra? Jorelle?_ _No,_ _she’s too young to be either. Lyanna would be_ _about_ _the right age... The_ _girl Maege Mormont named after my mother..._

“I’ll keep you safe,” he promised her, drawing his sword and eyeing the trio of knights who had come to help their weaponless comrade. “Both of you. Where’s your sister? Or your brother,” he added hastily, realizing a stranger wouldn’t know anything about her family.

His mother had always said little Lyanna was a sharp one, and he couldn’t take any chances. _I should ramble. Maybe it’ll confuse her._ “I mean, your sibling. Or your sibling-in-law. Your nephew’s parents. Or yours? Whoever you were with.”

She gave him a funny look but let it slide given the circumstances—the circumstances being that someone was currently trying to knock him unconscious with a sword. Jon kicked his attacker into the knight behind him and they fell to the ground like bowling pins.

“We were having lunch with my sister Dacey, but she’s been turned into a Gold Cloak,” she said, watching as Jon parried a blow from one of the remaining knights. He could see her smiling out of the corner of his eye, which confused him until she added proudly, “She’s very good at it! She’s caught six people already.”

“Oh, wow. I hope I don’t run into her, it sounds like she’d kick my ass,” Jon said without thinking. Then his brain caught up with his mouth. “Shoot! I meant butt, I meant... I didn’t say anything, pretend I didn’t say anything.”

“I know all the swear words already.” She dismissed his babbling with a wave of her hand. “You’re not very charming for a superhero, you know. Or confident. Superheroes aren’t supposed to admit the enemy could beat them up. It’s not encouraging.”

She didn’t sound particularly discouraged. Mostly she just seemed delighted to impart her wisdom to someone who really shouldn’t have needed it in the first place. At least she was nicer than Sansa, who regularly advised Jon to walk around with his mouth taped shut.

“I will keep that in mind,” Jon said, finally knocking the sword out of his opponent’s hand. The knight lunged forward in a desperate attempt to reclaim his sword. Jon dodged him with ease, and the knight’s momentum sent him hurtling straight into an open garbage bin at the edge of the square.

The final knight had lost his sword earlier, and Jon made quick work of him before taking a moment to survey their situation.

He couldn’t keep this up. Sure, he’d just taken out four of the bad guys, but there were dozens more who might notice them at any moment. The only real way to protect Lyanna and her nephew was to take down the source of all this chaos.

For the first time, he wished the strange girl with the flute had followed him. They could’ve worked together, one of them taking the kids to safety, the other facing down the leader of the knights. _I should’ve asked her to come with me._ He doubted she would have, but he should’ve at least tried.

“You can beat him, right?” Lyanna asked, as if she’d read his mind. “The Kingslayer?”

“He’s named himself the Kingslayer?” he stalled. He didn’t want to answer her question, because the truth was, he just didn’t know. And he couldn’t tell her that.

It wasn’t encouraging, after all.

She let out a little huff of impatience.“Yes, and he calls his knights ‘Gold Cloaks.’ Can you beat him or not?”

“I can beat him. I _will_ beat him,” Jon said, trying to infuse the words with confidence he didn’t have. “But first I need to get you and your nephew somewhere safe.”

“The school, you said it was safe! We could—” She broke off. A Gold Cloak had spotted them from across the square and immediately started towards them.

“That’s my _sister_ ,” she said. “That’s Dacey.”

There was a little quaver of fear in her voice, and it made Jon angry. He’d just seen her face down a grown man three times her size with only a stick to protect herself. He’d looked at her with red eyes and she’d stared back, unflinching.

But now she was afraid, because it wasn’t the bogeyman coming for her. It was her own sister, someone she loved and trusted.

What kind of asshole put little kids through that? Who did this Kingslayer guy think he was?

Jon spotted a stroller with a doll strapped in, right by the garbage bin the knight had fallen into. He unbuckled the doll and gave a mental apology to the owner as he tossed it to the ground.

“Up you go,” he said to the toddler, hoisting him up into the stroller. He buckled the kid in and then looked at Lyanna. “You push, I’ll keep those guys back.” He nodded at the Gold Cloaks.

“It’d work better the other way around,” Lyanna sniffed, but she grabbed the handle bar and pushed towards the school.

Jon tried for a smile, knowing he had to focus on the task at hand rather than his anger. “Well, _we_ know that, but I bet they think I look scarier than you.”

“It’s your eyes. They’re like a wolf’s.”

“An albino wolf, maybe.”

They reached the main road with minimal interference, but when they looked back Dacey was still gunning for them.

“Okay,” Jon said. “Hold my hand while we cross the street, and then—”

Lyanna actually _growled_ at him. “I can cross by myself! There aren’t even any cars on the road!”

“But—”

“One of my other sisters works at the school. His mom,” she said, pointing at her nephew. “We’ll find her and she’ll keep us safe. Now stop making excuses and go save Dacey!”

He’d met this little girl not even twenty minutes ago and he already knew better than to argue with her. He’d most certainly lose.

“Stay safe,” he told her, and then he ran for the square, looking back over his shoulder twice.

(The first time was to make sure the kids had reached the school in one piece.)

(The second time was to remind himself why he was running _towards_ the danger instead of _away_ from it.)

* * *

Sansa only meant to find out what was happening. Half an hour had trickled by as she sat in her tree, trying not to hyperventilate, and nothing had changed except her breathing rate. The suit hadn’t disappeared. No one had descended from above and explained all of this to her.

The ghost boy hadn’t come back.

 _He’s my only clue right now, the only person in the world_ _who’s going through the same thing I am_ _._ So she had to find him and make sure he was okay. No other reason. Why would there be, when he was so rude and patronizing? Accusing her of witchcraft! Mocking her perfectly lovely wooden flute, as if a brutish steel sword were the better option! Running off after implying she was too self-absorbed to even attempt to help people in need...

 _Let him think that. I’d rather he think I’m shallow than a coward._ As she drew closer to the square, slipping down the series of deserted alleyways that connected the back end of her high school to the Great Sept, it became harder and harder to deny that he would’ve been right in thinking her a coward.

Because the sight of all those weirdos in gold cloaks chasing people down _frightened_ her, made her want to run for the safety of her bedroom, the safety of her mother’s gentle arms and her father’s warm voice. She wanted to call Robb home from thousands of miles away, and tell him to defeat these monsters like he had the ones under her bed when they were little. She would even settle for Jon Snow in his place; she had once before, after all.

Robb, Jon and Theon had been having a sleepover, and though Sansa normally swallowed down her fear on those nights and stayed in her own bed, that particular night had been too much for her. She’d decided she’d rather put up with Theon making fun of her than the monsters lurking in the shadows, but apparently Robb hadn’t been willing to risk Theon making fun of _him_. He’d loftily declared himself too old for such “games,” and though his face had softened when he saw the tears welling in her eyes, he hadn’t backed down.

So Jon had gotten up instead, with surprisingly little grumbling, and followed her to her room. Only, when they’d reached it, he’d just sat down on her bed and asked her to sit beside him. And then he’d pointed to where Arya was sound asleep, untroubled by what might be hiding under her bed, and she’d expected him to say something about how she needed to be more like her sister.

Instead, he’d whispered to her that Arya slept so soundly because the monsters were watching over her. _“They want to be your friend, too, but they’re too scared.”_

“ _Scared of_ me _?”_ she’d scoffed, incredulous.

He’d nodded at her. _“You’re very scary. Smart, and stubborn. And so_ bossy _—”_

She’d pinched his arm, and he’d rubbed the spot, smiling. _“_ _Mean_ _, too.”_

“ _Anything else?”_ She’d lifted her chin and stared him down.

She could still remember how he’d hesitated, how surprised she’d been to see the flush in his cheeks.

“ _Radiant,”_ he’d said at last. He’d left right after that, and she’d slipped back into bed, monsters all but forgotten, promising herself she’d look up the word ‘radiant’ in the morning.

A strange wave of regret swept over her, and she blamed it on this horrifying, impossible day. The world had turned on its head, everything was backwards.

Why else would she wonder what had happened to the sweet eight-year-old boy who thought her radiant? Why else would she wonder what had changed in the past few months to have them constantly at each other’s throats?

None of that mattered. These gold-cloaked knights didn’t want to be her friend. The boy with the red eyes didn’t want to be her friend. Jon Snow had stopped being her friend long ago, and now he thought she was a vain and lazy airhead.

This wasn’t the time for friendship, but she wasn’t capable of heroics, either. Her only way out of this was to use her head, not muscles she’d gotten from a sudden and bizarre transformation, and not her heart.

 _I can’t help these people,_ she thought to herself, ignoring the sinking feeling in her gut. _I have to find that boy and get him out of here._

It took no time at all to find him, because he was right in the middle of the chaos, his sword drawn and matching a knight’s blow for blow.

 _Couldn’t have picked some_ _thing less dangerous, could you, Ghost Boy?_

As she watched from the shadows of her alleyway, the boy dodged a blow with too much force behind it for him to block. The knight automatically pivoted, readying himself to deliver another, and Sansa got a good look at his face.

No way.

This wasn’t happening. That was _not_ Jaime Lannister playing dress up and trying to hack Ghost Boy’s head off. Sansa was _not_ witnessing this with her own two eyes.

...Okay, she definitely was, but _surely_ there was a logical explanation. Maybe this was some outlandish business ploy, a new ad campaign?

 _But the Lannisters aren’t known for being outlandish... Cunning,_ _yes_ _, and manipulative, but not..._ _whatever this is._

“Let the boy go, Lannister!” Ghost shouted, and Sansa was sure it was only thanks to her amped-up hearing that she could pick his words out underneath all the racket.

“My _name_ is _Kingslayer_!” Lannister roared. “And I won’t let him go! All the Starks must pay, starting with him!”

Sansa swore her heart stopped. She climbed up the wall of her alleyway and swung herself around the corner, onto the overhang of a little bakery facing the square. The maneuver put her in plain view of everyone in the square, but she didn’t care. All she cared about was scanning the crowd for a little head of bright red hair...

It wasn’t Rickon, as she’d expected, but she felt no relief.

 _Bran,_ she thought weakly, looking up at that frightened face, those thin arms clinging to Baelor’s neck. _He loves to climb,_ _m_ _aybe he could..._ _N_ _o,_ _there’s no ridges or steps_ _..._

“Hey, lady! I could really use some help, here!”

Sansa tore her eyes from her brother, and though it was Ghost Boy who’d yelled for her, it was the Kingslayer who met her gaze.

“Well, well! Two against one! Not exactly fair, is it?” He paused his assault on Ghost to grin at her.

Why was it that today, every time she thought she couldn’t possibly be more terrified something happened to prove her wrong? How was she supposed to think through her fear this time, with the air stolen from her lungs and her heart hammering in her ears like a war drum?

She opened her mouth and all that came out was a choked whimper, too low for them to hear from across the distance.

“BRAN!”

She squeezed her eyes shut. _No... Nononononono—_

“You let my brother go, _right now_!” that high-pitched voice shouted.

She had to open her eyes. She _had_ to.

Brave little Rickon, trembling from head to toe as he elbowed his way through the crowd, with only his Ninja Turtles backpack to defend himself.

“Look who it is!” Lannister sneered, stalking towards Rickon, carelessly gesturing for his knights to let the boy pass. “The littlest Stark, offering himself up on a silver platter! It’s the Young Wolf I wanted most, but I won’t turn down such a generous gift!”

Bran screamed for Rickon to run, but it was too late. Ghost Boy lunged forward, but the Kingslayer knocked him to the ground with ease.

Desperate, Sansa grabbed the small but heavy store sign just above her and tore it down. She gathered as much momentum as she could and flung it across the square, not at the Kingslayer, but at the power lines running overhead.

In any other circumstances, it wouldn’t have worked. Without the strength-boost from the transformation, she never would’ve gotten the sign down or been able to lift it, let alone throw it so far. Without the drastic improvement in her eyesight (and probably her hand-eye coordination, too), her throw would’ve missed. Any other time of year, the power lines wouldn’t have been frosted over, and they wouldn’t have snapped no matter how hard she threw the sign.

But it was the middle of winter, and some mystical force had _changed_ her, and the lines snapped.

The Kingslayer threw himself out of the way in the nick of time, but that distraction was all Ghost Boy needed. He leaped over the Kingslayer and scooped up Rickon, darting away faster than humanly possible.

_One baby brother down, one to go._

Only, Ghost Boy had to look after Rickon, which left her to rescue Bran alone. _I can’t do it... He’s so high up, and the Kingslayer is too strong. He has a sword. He has an_ army _._ It felt like she’d need a thousand live wires to take him down, but all she had was a stupid wooden flute.

She couldn’t do it, but neither could she leave her brother helpless, fifty feet above the ground.

Ghost met her eyes across the distance. Maybe he saw the fear in them or maybe he just didn’t trust her to save Bran, because he gestured for them to switch places.

 _Can_ I _trust_ him _? With my brother’s_ life _?_  Her head said no, but it also said there was a more important question:

_Do I have a choice?_

The answer to that one was no, too. The boy had a weapon, unlike her, and he seemed to know how to use it. Maybe he had some sort of training. Either way, he had a better chance of pulling this off than her. _I_ have _to trust him, just this one time. There’s no other way to save Bran._

The Kingslayer had long since recovered, but he made no move towards either her or Ghost Boy, merely looked between them in amusement.

“Oh, you two just take your time!” he called out. “I’ll be here all day! But then...so will he.” He nodded up at Bran. “I wonder how long it’ll be before he’s too tired to hold on any longer?”

He turned to Rickon and smiled. “What do you think, little wolf? How long does your big brother have before he falls?”

Rickon strained against Ghost’s hold, glaring at the Kingslayer and shouting profanities Sansa hadn’t even realized he knew. _Damn it, Robb. You managed to teach our little brother every_ _curse_ _word in the book, but where are you when a maniac holds our other little brother hostage? Off at university, earning a business degree so you can move away from Westeros and never come back._

Lannister was right; Bran didn’t have forever. Sansa dropped down from the overhang and ran for Rickon. The Kingslayer did nothing to stop her, and Sansa took her little brother from Ghost Boy, wrapping her arms around him and promising him everything would be alright.

“It’s not alright!” Rickon said, his voice wobbly, and he shoved against her hold. “My brother’s up there! He needs help, and you’re both just standing here!”

“I’ll help him, I promise,” Ghost Boy assured Rickon, drawing his sword. He looked at Sansa, and his red eyes were oddly fierce as he said, “Keep him _safe_.”

As if she needed the admonishment. As if she didn’t stand to lose far more than him if this all went wrong. As if...

As if she were a stranger to Rickon, and to Bran, rather than their big sister. The one they’d always ran to with scrapes and bruises and nightmares, because even though Robb was the strongest, and Arya the toughest, Sansa was the one they knew they could trust not to think them silly or weak.

And she was, wasn’t she? Right now, she really was a stranger to her brothers. Rickon didn’t even recognize under this mask, these yellow eyes, this ridiculous costume.

“I will,” she said quietly, meeting Ghost’s gaze head-on. “Save that boy.”

His mouth contorted into what she might call a smile, if she were being generous.

“I will.”

* * *

“I can’t _believe_ those idiots let Rickon get kidnapped!” Arya seethed, stabbing at her pasta with a fork. “They had him, and then they lost him!”

“That’s enough, Arya,” Catelyn warned, eyeing the miserable look on Bran’s face and the blank one on Sansa’s.

Sansa was just as upset as her siblings, Catelyn knew, but where Arya expressed herself through anger and Bran through sadness and guilt, Sansa’s fear for her little brother manifested as a kind of numbness. It made Cat even more concerned for her than she otherwise would have been. Sansa could be reserved, to be sure, always so concerned about making a good impression and doing what was expected of her, but that reserve usually melted away among family and close friends.

“It’s my fault. They could’ve taken Rickon away somewhere safe, but they wasted time rescuing me instead,” Bran said, hanging his head.

Catelyn reached across the table and gripped his hand tightly. “Don’t you _ever_ say that.” She waited for him to look up at her. “Saving you was the only thing those fools did right.”

Arya stopped stabbing her food, her anger deflated. “Mom’s right. At least you’re okay—I don’t know what we’d do if Lannister had gotten you, too.”

A wave of fury washed over her at the name. _Lannister_. Ned was at an emergency meeting with the mayor and his wife, but what good would that do? Robert Baratheon would do nothing to aid them, not with Cersei Lannister right beside him, explaining away her cousin’s numerous criminal offences as if they were mere speeding tickets.

 _I_ _f_ he was even capable of doing anything to help them to begin with. Once, towards the beginning of his term, she’d had some measure of faith in him. How could she not, when he was Ned’s oldest friend? Yet as the years went on, even Ned grew to doubt him. It had seemed only Jon Arryn’s good advice was keeping the man from leading the city to ruin, but with the recent accident...

 _Another thing we can lay at the feet of the Lannisters, if my sister is right._ Would there ever be a way to know for sure? The Lannisters would never admit to it, and according to the doctors, it was extremely unlikely Jon Arryn would ever wake from his coma.

It was hopeless. Yet she’d rushed off to tell Ned of the phone call right away, leaving Arya and Sansa to find their own way to school, and Rickon...

According to a classmate of Rickon’s, Osha had come to pick him up during lunch break, to take him out for a treat at a bakery near the Great Sept. She’d always liked to do little things like that for him when he was upset. Cat knew why he would’ve been upset this morning, and her stomach roiled at the very thought.  _I was in such a rush to get to Ned, I snapped at Rickon when he asked where his_ _Ninja Turtle_ _s lunchbox was. I told him I threw it out._

She really _had_ thought she’d thrown the thing in the garbage, having confused it with the Avengers lunchbox he’d ruined in the microwave yesterday. Halfway to the Red Keep, she’d realized her mistake, and she’d promised herself she’d drop it off during his lunch. Only her meeting with her clients had run longer than she’d expected, and she’d told herself she’d pick bring it with her when she picked him up from school later, instead.

None of it seemed important anymore. Not Jon Arryn’s accident and the Lannister’s possible involvement in it. Not her meeting with the day’s uppity clients, planning their damn banquet for some charity that spent over half their proceeds on expensive cars and vacations to tropical locales.

Only her little boy mattered. Her little boy, alone with a madman, afraid for his life. Wondering when his parents would come save him...

“Mom?” Sansa asked softly, concern leaking into her voice as she saw the tears trickling down her mother’s cheeks.

Catelyn wiped them away impatiently. Her clients didn’t matter, Jon Arryn didn’t matter, but her family _did_ , she reminded herself. All of them. Rickon and Bran, Sansa and Arya, Ned and—

Her cell phone rang. Cat answered it in record time without even checking the call display. If it was Ned, she would finally have some idea of what was being done to save Rickon. If it wasn’t, whoever it was had about five seconds to convince her not to hang up.

“Hello?” she said, in a sharp voice that just _dared_ the person on the other end to try and sell her something.

“Mother, I just saw the news—”

“ _Robb_.”

“Robb?” Arya said, perking up. Bran did the same, and even Sansa looked interested.

“It’s not true, is it?” Robb demanded.

Catelyn clenched her eyes shut. “I’m afraid it is.”

“So Lannister just _took_ him? In the middle of the square? And no one did anything to stop him?”

She opened her eyes and glanced at her children again. Perhaps it would be better if she went somewhere private for the rest of this conversation.

“It’s _all_ true, Robb,” she said quietly, once she’d closed her bedroom door. “People being turned into ‘Gold Cloaks.’ Lannister calling himself ‘The Kingslayer.’ Those super-powered kids. Bran was there for the whole thing, and you know he doesn’t lie.”

“Two kids with superpowers, and they couldn’t save Rickon?”

She sighed tiredly, rubbing her forehead. “They saved Bran, at least. Lannister took him right from the lunchroom of his school, and brought him to that statue in front of the Great Sept. You know the one, Baelor the Blessed? He left Bran on one of the shoulders.”

“That’s at least fifty feet up!”

“I know. He must’ve been terrified, but he won’t admit it. He keeps saying it’s all his fault, what happened to Rickon.”

“Of course it’s not!”

“I know that, Robb, and we’ve all told him that. He won’t listen.” She told him the rest of the story. How Rickon had been at the square with Osha on his lunch break. How Osha had likely been turned into a Gold Cloak, and how Rickon had run right into the chaos to save his brother. How the super kids had rescued him, but then the boy had gone to fight the Kingslayer, leaving the girl with Rickon.

And how, when it looked like the boy would lose, the girl had abandoned Rickon to help him.

Robb was quiet for a while after Cat finished, but then he finally said, “It’s her fault, then. Hers and Jaime Lannister’s.”

Cat had said the very same thing more than once, but hearing it from someone else, her conscience twinged. “I wouldn’t give them equal share of the blame.”

“No, I know,” Robb agreed with a sigh. “Lannister will be locked up for this, after the police get Rickon back.”

“I’m worried they won’t,” she confessed, words she hadn’t dared utter in front of Bran and Arya and Sansa. Robb was her eldest, old enough now to be off on his own, but some part of her still wanted to snatch words back. Keep her burdens to herself.

“Of course they will. The mayor is Father’s oldest friend, he’ll have the police doing everything they can to save Rickon.”

“The mayor is also the husband of Jaime Lannister’s cousin,” Catelyn pointed out.

“Even still, the law is the law.”

Cat didn’t respond. Yes, the law was the law. And corrupt men were corrupt men, no matter how many laws they were expected to follow.

She wasn’t entirely without hope, though. She’d made a phone call earlier to her own old friend, one who worked within the walls of the Red Keep. If anyone could help motivate the police to do their damn jobs properly, it was the man in charge of the city’s finances, surely.

“Is Father there?” Robb changed the subject.

“No, he’s in a meeting with the mayor,” Cat said. “But Arya, Bran and Sansa are all here. School’s been cancelled for the day.”

“I’d drive up this minute, but there was a big storm here yesterday and the roads are closed. I know Jon’s a poor substitute for an extraordinary specimen such as myself, but you’ll have to make do with him for now,” he teased, making an obvious effort to keep his tone lighthearted.

“Jon isn’t here.” Cat frowned. Jon had called earlier to make sure Bran was okay and ask if there was anything they needed, but they hadn’t heard from him since.

“He isn’t?” Robb sounded startled. He recovered quickly, joking, “Slacking on the job! I’m going to call him right now.”

“Don’t you be rude to him,” she warned. She herself had expected Jon to show up, especially after she’d told him that though they didn’t need anything, they’d all appreciate his company (well, Sansa wouldn’t, but that went without saying), but he had plenty of responsibilities piled high on his young shoulders already, and she couldn’t blame him for not doing so.

She could see Robb’s cheeky smile in her mind as he said, “I wouldn’t dream of it. I love you, Mother. Remember to breathe. Everything will be okay in the end.”

“I love you.”

He hung up.

Catelyn took a few deep breaths and then went back to the kitchen, where the kids were waiting for news in silence.

“Is Robb coming home?” Bran asked hopefully.

“The roads down there are closed from yesterday’s storm.” She brushed a hand through his hair to soften the disappointing news. “Robb’s calling Jon, though, so I’m sure he’ll be here soon.”

“I’m sure Jon would’ve already been here, if it weren’t for a certain _someone_ always treating him like gum stuck to the bottom of her perfect princess shoes.” Arya sent a nasty glare her sister’s way.

Normally, this was the part where Sansa responded with an equally nasty comment about either Jon Snow or her sister, or both.

This time she just sat there, staring down at the kitchen table with a vacant expression, as if she hadn’t heard her sister’s insult.

Arya looked _unnerved_ , and when her phone buzzed, she snatched it up with obvious relief. Her relief faded quickly as she read the new text message, however, replaced by a frown.

“It’s Robb. He couldn’t reach Jon, so he called Lyanna. She said Jon left an hour ago, and he told her he was going to see us.” She looked up at Catelyn with anxious eyes. “You don’t think he’d do something stupid, do you?”

“You mean like try to save Rickon on his own?” Bran gasped, his face rapidly losing color. “He can’t! The Kingslayer will kill him!”

Sansa shifted restlessly, but she didn’t look up from the table. “He wouldn’t do that,” she mumbled, unease seeping into her voice. “If two superheroes couldn’t beat the Kingslayer, why would Jon even try?”

“Superheroes!” Arya scoffed. “ _Theon_ could put on underwear over a pair of tights and tie a bed-sheet around his neck, and he’d be more of a superhero than those idiots.”

Sansa pushed back from the table. “I’m not hungry,” she said.

“But you’ve barely—” Cat protested, looking at Sansa’s nearly full bowl of pasta.

“I’ll eat later,” she interrupted. She wrapped her bowl up and put in the fridge, moving like she was on auto-pilot, and then she left the kitchen without another word to them.

Cat watched as her eldest daughter climbed the stairs, shoulders slumped as if in defeat.

“What’s her problem? We have enough to worry about without her going off to sulk!” Arya complained, and Catelyn recognized the hint of guilt in her voice.

“That _is_ her problem,” Bran said. “She’s worried.”

“Well, so am I, but you don’t see me—”

Catelyn stood up, the abrupt movement interrupting whatever Arya was going to say. “I’m going to check on her.”

She grabbed the glass of water Sansa had left behind and a couple of pop-tarts from the cupboard. Sansa opened the door when she knocked, and surprise flickered across her face for a second when she noticed the silver packaging in her mother’s hand.

“You should eat _something_ ,” Cat said, handing over the glass and the pop-tarts. “Even if it is junk.”

“Thanks.” Sansa managed a smile as she ripped the packaging open.

Catelyn noticed a picture frame lying on top of Sansa’s neatly made bed. From this angle all she could see was a glimpse of red curls, but that was enough.

“We’ll get him back,” she assured her daughter softly.

Sansa’s smile wobbled. “I know we will.”

Cat took her by shoulders and said, “We _will_. With or without Theon in tights and a bed-sheet.”

A burst of shocked laughter escaped Sansa’s mouth, and Catelyn smiled. “That’s better.”

As she left her daughter in peace and went to clean the kitchen table, she remembered the vow she’d made to herself the moment she’d heard what had happened to her little boy:

She _would_ get Rickon back from Jaime Lannister.

Even if she had to take down that monster herself.

* * *

This was, without a doubt, the stupidest thing Jon had ever done in his life. The Gold Cloaks had branched out from the square and taken over entire neighbourhoods, and the mayor had warned the people of Westeros to lock themselves inside their homes.

Jon was not locked inside his home. Jon was slinking across rooftops, searching for the Kingslayer’s hideout and trying to avoid being captured by patrolling Gold Cloaks.

There was no other choice, though. He’d felt a pulse in his wrist mere minutes after the Kingslayer had escaped with Rickon, and he’d had just enough time to run from the square and duck out of sight before his transformation reversed.

He’d spent hours locked in his room, ignoring his aching body and trying to trigger the transformation again, before finally getting so fed up he’d decided to go after Lannister without the superhero suit. The moment he’d called a goodbye to his mother and left the apartment, his wrist had started burning again. He’d slipped into the (thankfully empty) elevator, and came out again on the top floor dressed in blinding white spandex.

He’d opened the window, scaled the walls of the building up to the roof, and then he’d been off. Vowing to save Rickon before the transformation wore out, because it might very well be his last chance.

But first, he had to _find_ Rickon.

 _If I were filthy rich and made of pure evil, where would I hide?_ No answer came to him. Probably because he _wasn’t_ filthy rich or made of pure evil.

He tried the Great Sept again, but when he peaked in through the windows he only saw a group of civilians, trapped inside by the Gold Cloaks.

He tried his high school, but neither Rickon nor the Kingslayer were there, either. He thought of Lyanna and her nephew and hoped Ms. Mormont had gotten them home safe. He hoped Dacey was alright, wherever she was, and he hoped taking down the Kingslayer would change her back.

Gods, what if these people couldn’t be changed back? Families would be torn apart, all of Westeros would be torn apart.

What if Lannister had turned Rickon into a Gold Cloak? What if he’d—

Jon suddenly found himself thinking of the summer Rickon had turned four, and he and Robb had taken him to the fair for his birthday. Rickon had been so upset, because Bran and Arya were away at camp, Sansa had tagged along with the Pooles on their vacation, and his parents were working. So Robb, in an effort to cheer him up, had let Rickon have anything and everything his little heart desired.

Yes, of course they could go on the tea cups five times in a row. Of course they could fork over ten dollars to play the crane game over and over until they won that stuffed dog. Of course Rickon could have pizza, and a slushie, and cotton candy, and popcorn. Of course they could go on the jerky wooden roller coaster immediately after they finished eating.

Inevitably, Rickon had puked his guts out not long after getting off the thing. Robb had patted his back guiltily and Jon had helped him clean up, and then the three of them had sat down on a nearby bench. They’d been silent for over five minutes before Rickon had finally looked up at them, tears in his eyes as he said, in the most tragic voice Jon had ever heard, _“I’m no good. Just throw me in the garbage.”_

Robb had been too busy fighting back laughter to console his little brother, so the job had fallen to Jon. He’d knelt down in front of Rickon and desperately tried to explain that he _was_ good and he _didn’t_ deserve be thrown in the garbage, but it hadn’t made the kid feel any better. Eventually Jon had pointed out that they _couldn’t_ throw him away because Bran, Sansa, and even Arya would cry, and only then had Rickon perked up.

They’d played some more games and even gone a couple more rides, and when they’d gotten back to the Stark’s house, the whole family had been there waiting to surprise Rickon, even Sansa.

If anything happened to Rickon, they’d all be crying. They might very well never stop.

 _Maybe I should try the fair grounds._ They’d been closed since the beginning of September, the entire area deserted; what could be better for an evil lair? The instant he reached the grounds, he knew he’d struck gold. Literally. There were Gold Cloaks everywhere.

Even still, it was easy enough to get in without being seen, and it took no time at all to find his targets.

 _Of course he picked the tallest ride_ _in the place_ _to dangle Rickon from. Who doesn’t get a thrill from terrifying_ _little kids_ _out of their minds?_ Jon realized he was shaking with rage.

It made him reckless. That was something he’d realized about himself a long time ago—the stronger the emotion, the more reckless he became. Yet there was no stopping it. Instead of looking for a way to reach the ride unseen, he marched out into the open.

Let the Gold Cloaks come at him. He was _dying_ to punch someone out.

“It’s the Kingslayer I wanted,” he said, with a mocking smile at the trio who moved to surround him. “But I won’t turn down such a _generous gift_.”

He took all three down without even unsheathing his sword, but more Gold Cloaks immediately moved to replace their fallen comrades. By the third round, he knew he’d bitten off more than he could chew.

By the fifth, he realized that not only had he doomed himself with his recklessness, he’d also doomed Rickon. After all, who else was going to save him? That little lady who’d let the Kingslayer kidnap him in the first place?

Maybe it was the knowledge that he’d failed and it was all over, but something like remorse crept up inside him. _She only left him because I needed help. I was losing. She thought he’d be safe_ _there on that balcony, where the Gold Cloaks couldn’t reach him... Neither of us expected the Kingslayer to get pas_ _sed_ _us. Neither of us expected him to give up on Bran and take Rickon instead._

He remembered every awful thing he’d shouted at her after the Kingslayer and his knights had disappeared. He remembered her shouting back, and Bran trying to speak up, trying to remind them that his brother had just been kidnapped and they were wasting time arguing.

He remembered calling Catelyn after he’d transformed back, the guilt that had welled up inside him at the sound of her voice, hoarse like she’d been crying, like she was barely holding it together. He’d thought of Arya and Ned and even Sansa, and he’d wished Robb was with his family. With him.

Every jealous thought he’d had in the past five months, every time he’d groaned at his pile of homework and decided to put it off and hang out with Robb instead, only to remember that Robb was thousands of miles away... Off on his own, growing up, while Jon was stuck repeating the year he’d failed.

 _Even Theon managed to graduat_ _e_ _..._ _I felt_ _like I’d been left behind._

Now Jon’s mother would be left behind, as if she hadn’t suffered enough already. Rickon would be left behind, turned into a Gold Cloak or worse.

And it was all Jon’s fault.

A knight knocked Jon’s sword out of his hand. He nearly laughed when he realized it was Dacey Mormont, and he nearly cried when he realized he’d forgotten there were innocent people underneath those cloaks, changed against their will, forced to do Jaime Lannister’s bidding.

He wondered what they’d do with him. Turn him into one of them? Get rid of him entirely?

He never found out.

“HEY, YOU!”

Dacey and her fellow knights automatically turned towards the shout, but Jon heard the rumbling coming from a different direction and jumped out of the way.

The big wooden barrel slammed into Dacey, who fell back and took the others down with her. Jon couldn’t help but wince as the barrel just kept rolling right over them. Then it suddenly slowed down before stopping completely.

Jon walked around the barrel to find its conqueror looking immensely pleased with herself.

“Ten points for the girl in grey!”

“A strike if I ever saw one,” Jon agreed. “How’d you get it moving that fast?”

She took one hand off the barrel and gestured to something behind it. “I sent it for a nice ride down the mega slide.”

Jon stood on his tip-toes to see what she was pointing at. _Good Gods._ He looked back at the girl. “Is this the part where I beg you to give me a second chance to _not_ get on your bad side? You get two rolls per turn in bowling, right?”

She smirked at him. “I don’t know how you’re going to make up for a gutter ball.”

“Maybe I need bumpers.”

“Tell you what, ghost boy,” she said, leaning in close, all traces of humor gone from her voice. She looked deadly serious as she bargained, “Help me save Rickon Stark, and I’ll give you as many chances as you want.”

“It’s a deal, lady.”

* * *

Cat drove to the fair grounds on a hunch. She’d caught a glimpse of them on the news and noticed that there happened to be an _awful_ lot of Gold Cloaks there, and she’d thought to herself, _Perhaps they’re guarding something._ _Perhaps they’re guarding Jaime Lannister and my_ _son_ _._

So she’d lied to her children and told them their Aunt Lysa had texted her about an emergency. She’d ordered them to stay inside with the doors locked, and to not open them for _anyone_ , not even Jon Snow.

“ _Your father will be home soon,”_ she’d said. _“He’ll have a key. Arya, you’re in charge until he gets home.”_

She would’ve left Sansa in charge, but her eldest daughter was still upstairs in her room. Besides, she’d get fewer complaints from Arya this way.

She felt a little ridiculous, driving her mini-van to a fight with a supervillain, a vaguely menacing shovel and pitchfork lying in the back seat. Ned was one of the few people who worked at the Red Keep who _didn’t_ own a gun, something she’d never had cause to regret before now, so she’d had to make do with what she could find in the garage.

The streets were, of course, completely deserted—civilians didn’t dare to leave their homes, and the Gold Cloaks hadn’t reached her neighborhood yet, thankfully.

 _If Lannister_ is _at the fair grounds, then the closer I get, the more Gold Cloaks I’ll see... Hmm..._

It was _agonizing_ , spending precious minutes checking the news to make sure the route she had in mind remained unguarded, but she knew she had to. Luckily, it was, so she wasted no more time. It was a long enough route as it was, a roundabout way of getting to the grounds. She couldn’t afford any further delays.

Like her husband calling her cell phone. She let it go to voicemail. He’d called not half an hour ago to tell her that Robert Baratheon was “doing everything in his power to rescue Rickon,” which was to say, he wasn’t doing a damn thing. She doubted anything had changed since then. More likely, Ned had gotten home only for Arya and Bran to inform him she was gone, and he knew her too well to believe she would leave her children alone in the midst of a disaster to help her sister, a grown woman.

He knew her so well, he probably knew exactly what she was up to. _Just l_ _et him_ try _and stop me_ _from saving our little boy_ _._

Then Petyr Baelish called. She answered that one, putting it on speaker so she’d have her hands free to drive. He told her his contacts at the police station were, “searching for Rickon as we speak.”

Cat hung up on him.

 _Men,_ she thought in disgust. _Always ten steps behind me, it seems._

Just as she’d suspected, no one was guarding the back entrance of the fair grounds. _No one outside of Westeros would want to visit in the middle of this horror show, and who would bother driving all the_ _up_ _to the highway and back_ _around_ _?_

Only a mother, desperate to save her child.

She parked the car and then opened the door to the back seat, unsure which garden tool she should take.

“I’d go with the pitchfork, personally.”

Cat bit back a scream as she whirled around.

“I like the shovel better. We don’t need to stab anyone, these people don’t know what they’re doing!”

“What— How—” Catelyn spluttered. She took a deep breath to compose herself. “ _Arya and Brandon Stark!_ ”

It was a good thing she’d perfected the whisper-yell over the years, or else she would’ve given them away to the Gold Cloaks.

Bran winced, and Arya laughed. “ _Ohhh_ , full name! We really _are_ in trouble.”

“You disobeyed me, left your sister at home alone in an emergency—” She realized her trunk was open. “—snuck into the trunk of my car! Of course you’re in trouble! You’ll be in trouble for _the rest of your_ _damn_ _lives_ —”

To her shock, it was Bran who cut her off. “We don’t care,” he said fiercely. “You’re here because you want to save Rickon. Well, so do we!”

“Sansa will be fine,” Arya added. “You said yourself that Dad would be home soon. Anyways, she can take care of herself, she’s not a baby! Any Gold Cloaks get in the house, we’ll probably come back and find them cleaning her room and painting her nails for her.”

Incensed, Catelyn considered shoving them back into the car and turning on the child locks. _They’d just find a way out,_ she thought grimly. _Like the little hellions they are._

“We’re wasting time,” Bran pointed out.

Arya grabbed the pitchfork. “Shovel for the knights, pitchfork for the Lannister! Sounds good to me!”

Bran didn’t even argue, which spoke volumes about his opinion of Jaime Lannister.

Catelyn closed her eyes and counted to ten. Then she opened them again and spoke slowly, enunciating her words with care: “You can come along, but you will stay hidden unless _I_ say otherwise. After we get Rickon back, I will take you both home and you will be grounded forever, locked in your rooms with Rhaeger Targaryen’s psychedelic folk-metal rap album playing on loop for all eternity. And—” She snatched the pitchfork from Arya. “—the Kingslayer is _mine_.”

Bran looked a little nauseated, but Arya stared up at Cat with undisguised admiration. Despite herself, Catelyn felt a little spark of pride. It wasn’t often she caught her youngest daughter looking at her like that.

“Come along, now,” she said briskly. She led them along the outskirts of the fair grounds, staying low and out of sight, searching for Rickon or the Kingslayer.

They found both easily.

 _That monster will be_ begging _for mercy when I’m through with him..._

Arya’s grip on the shovel tightened, a hiss of anger escaping her lips. Bran looked at the pitchfork in Cat’s hands like he was wishing they’d brought something more gruesome.

_...but first I need a plan._

* * *

Sansa ducked under the Kingslayer’s sword and tried to kick his legs out from under him. She failed miserably, and Ghost Boy had to haul her out of the way before she got stabbed.

 _Damn it, this is why we agreed Ghost should do the fighting, not me!_ Super-strength she had, and speed and flexibility, but skill? In combat? No. In sword-fighting? Definitely not.

Unfortunately, the Kingslayer was less willing to play by their rules this go-around. Every time Ghost Boy tried to hold him off so Sansa could climb the drop ride tower (so ‘cleverly’ named _The Cliff Hanger_ ) to rescue Rickon, he knocked Ghost to the ground or slipped around him and went after Sansa instead.

What they needed was a distraction, but Sansa didn’t have any power cables or barrels on her now. She had nothing but her flute.

_I must have it for a reason... I should at least try it._

She tried it. She removed it from its case and brought it to her lips, and Lannister and Ghost Boy both stopped what they were doing, as if waiting for something spectacular to happen.

Nothing spectacular happened. Nothing happened at all, except that she made some beautiful, useless music.

Ghost sighed. Maybe out of frustration, maybe out of secondhand embarrassment, Sansa didn’t know. Sansa didn’t _want_ to know.

“That’s a nice tune, little girl!” the Kingslayer taunted. “I wonder if the Stark boy will sing even half as prettily when he finally falls from there?”

Sansa dropped the flute and lunged at him. She couldn’t help herself. This was the worst day of her life, and she was so angry, and so _afraid_ , and there was something bubbling up in her veins but she didn’t know how to let it out—

“Lady, don’t—”

Lannister didn’t run her through, though he could’ve. He just stepped out of the way leisurely, as if he had all the time in the world, and she landed hard on the asphalt, catching herself on her hands.

“Lady!” she heard Ghost call out, but she was fine. The suit protected her.

Yet despite the lack of pain, she found herself squeezing her eyes shut, fighting back tears. _He knows I’m not a threat to him. He doesn’t take me seriously. He’s just like Joffrey, and Jon, and Arya. Even Robb doesn’t take me seriously._ She didn’t take _herself_ seriously. But this wasn’t about her, was it? It was about Rickon.

She opened her eyes and pushed herself to her feet, and then she froze. _Is that...? I h_ _ave to keep his attention on me!_ She charged at him again, but she was too late.

“It’s like Christmas has come early!” He batted her out of the way like he was swatting a fly, and called out, “Gold Cloaks!”

They appeared as though they’d been there the whole time, and at the Kingslayer’s command they stalked towards Arya and Catelyn, swords drawn, calling for blood in eerie synchronization.

“No...”

Sansa ran for her mother and sister, Ghost running behind her, and she looked over her shoulder to see how close Lannister was. 

She dug her heels in, grinding to a halt and twisting around completely. He was nowhere near them. He was at the tower, climbing at a pace so quick he easily caught up to—

“ _NO!_ ”

It could’ve been anyone’s scream, Ghost’s or Arya’s or Cat’s. It could’ve been Rickon’s, or hers.

Or Bran’s.

She met Ghost’s eye for a split-second as he passed by her, and that was all she needed. She knew what to do. They both did.

Sansa raced for the tower as Bran fell, telling herself over and over, _I’m fast enough. I’ll make it. I’m fast enough._

She made it. She stretched out her arms and braced herself, and she caught him. They sank to the ground and stayed there, Sansa’s face buried in Bran’s hair, Bran trembling all over and clutching at her like he needed to make sure she was real.

Then her mother’s agonized scream pierced the air, and her heart stopped. She pulled back from Bran, looking him over to make sure she hadn’t imagined catching him just in time, but he was alive.

Terrified, a little banged up, but alive and breathing and _alive_.

She looked up at the Cliff Hanger and saw Rickon was still clinging to the top. _Then why..._

 _Arya, something must’ve happened to Arya,_ she thought, almost choking on her panic. She couldn’t bring herself to turn to where she’d last seen her sister. _I shouldn’t have left them to Ghost. I thought we understood each other... I thought I could trust him... And now Arya—_

“ _Bran!_ ” Her mother’s voice again. “Bran, are you okay? Bran!”

Sansa turned. Her mouth dropped open. There was ice _everywhere_ , a jagged wall of it trapping the Gold Cloaks, separating them from her mother and sister...and Ghost.

_Did he do that?_

“Did you drop this, young lady?”

It was her father. He knelt down beside her and Bran, handing her the flute and taking his son from her arms.

“Dad,” Bran whispered, and their father whispered back, “You’re alright, now, son. You’re okay, Bran.”

“But Rickon—”

“I’ll save Rickon,” Sansa declared, rising up. She could still feel that _something_ coursing through her veins, and it looked like Ghost had just made ice appear out of thin air. Who knew what _she_ could do?

 _Anything,_ she thought giddily. She’d just saved her brother’s life, after all.

“Let us help. It’s not good to do everything on your own,” Ned told her, his mouth curling into a small smile. Bran nodded in agreement despite his shaking hands.

She chewed on her bottom lip as she thought it over. “We need a distraction. How did you get here?”

He got it right away, she could tell, so she gave them a smile and went to stand beside Ghost.

“We have a plan,” he murmured.

“And _we_ have a distraction,” she whispered back. “No ice powers, though.”

He smiled, a little sheepish, and confessed, “I don’t know how I did that. I wanted to save them, and it just...happened.”

“Are you sure you didn’t all sing a rousing chorus of ‘Let It Go’ first?”

“You’re brutal,” he complained. “Save that for the Kingslayer.”

“You can count on it.”

She heard the screech of tires right before her father drove passed them, cutting off a group of knights Lannister had called to aid him. They stumbled back, falling to the ground, and Bran opened the passenger door just long enough to fling a fishing net onto them. 

_I’ve never been so thankful that Dad forgets to clean out his car every winter._

The car spun until it faced Jaime Lannister, whose eyes widened in alarm. _Mom and Arya had better hurry! Four thousand pounds of metal hurtling towards him is as distracted as he’s ever going to get!_

A huge plastic doughnut suddenly rolled out in front of them, and Ghost grabbed it. He gave a thumbs up in the direction the doughnut had come from and asked Sansa if she wanted to do the honors.

She did. _This was totally Arya’s idea. She’d never forgive me if I didn’t, even if she doesn’t know it’s me._

Ned backed Lannister up until there was nowhere for him to go, and Sansa lifted the doughnut with ease and brought it down over his head.

“Perfect fit,” she said, and then kicked his legs out from under him for good measure.

She and Ghost ran for the tower and climbed as fast as they could. Sixty feet in the air, it occurred to her that she’d never been this high up before. She kept climbing. It might’ve just been the wind blowing her braid back, or the adrenaline rush, or (most likely) the superhero suit—but she felt _invincible_. Forty feet to go, but it might as well have been a stepping stool to Sansa.

They reached Rickon, and Sansa had never felt more relief than when he wrapped his little arms around her neck. Ghost kept to her pace as she climbed down with Rickon on her back, and halfway down they switched. 

Her family had gathered together at the foot of the tower, and her mother sobbed as she pulled Rickon from Ghost’s back and into her arms. Rickon was crying, too, and Sansa couldn’t hold back her own tears. They were all crying, even Arya. Even Ghost’s eyes looked suspiciously wet, and the Starks were strangers to him, not family.

“This isn’t over!”

Sansa looked around and found the Kingslayer on his feet, his cape and armor dishevelled as if he’d had to wriggle free of the doughnut. Ghost unsheathed his sword. Arya somehow produced a pitchfork out of thin air, and when their mother snatched it from her, she came up with a shovel instead. Cat gave Rickon to Ned and stepped up in front of them all, brandishing the pitchfork.

Sansa looked down at her sad wooden flute, and a hand tugged on her arm. It was Bran, and he smiled at her.

“Play it,” he told her.

So she did. She closed her eyes and just _played_ , not caring what, thinking of Ghost’s wall of ice and what he’d said. _“I wanted to save them, and it just...happened.”_

 _I’ve already saved my family. I want to save_ everyone _._

_I want to stop the Kingslayer for good._

As her fingers drifted along the keys, she found herself imagining the Kingslayer in chains, the source of his power just outside his reach. Opening his mouth to call for his knights, only to find himself voiceless.

She felt that _something_ —energy or magic or _power_ , she didn’t know—flowing out of her, as if the music were carrying it away, and she opened her eyes to see the Kingslayer lying on the ground before her.

In chains, his gold cloak inches from his fingertips, his mouth open but no sound coming out.

Sansa almost dropped the flute in shock. Someone behind her gasped, and she heard Arya mutter, “Holy _shit_.”

 _But it’s not real,_ she realized, little tingles running up and down her arms. _They all think it is, even the Kingslayer, but it’s just a trick. An illusion._

She lowered the flute. The illusion held, to her pleasure, and she went not to the cloak on the ground, but to where the Kingslayer lay. She rolled him over and grasped at the real cloak still around his shoulders, the one only she could see, and ripped it from him.

The illusion shattered, and she met Ghost’s incredulous gaze as an eerie purple mist left the cloak, gathering until it formed a little bird. Ghost snapped out of his daze and froze the bird with his powers before it could fly away. 

She thought she heard a strange whisper in the wind, a voice calling the bird home, and the ice around it suddenly melted away. Somehow, it was no longer glowing that unnatural purple.

Ghost let the bird go this time, his voice hushed as he asked her, “What was that? A blackbird?”

“I don’t think so. I’ve never seen a blackbird like that before. Did you hear that... that...” She tried to think of a word for it and failed.

“I heard it, too. And look at _that_.” He gestured to the cloak in her hands. Only, it was no longer a cloak, no longer gold, even. It was just a winter coat. An outrageously expensive one, no doubt, but still just a coat.

The man at their feet groaned, his sword and armor gone. Jaime Lannister looked up at them, disoriented. 

“Where am I? Who the hell are you people?” he demanded, slurring most of his words.

Sansa looked over to where a group of Gold Cloaks had been trapped by the ice, and then to the group that had been caught in the fishing net. They were all back to there normal selves, scrambling away from each other, shouting, wanting to know what was going on.

Catelyn Tully Stark marched towards at the man who’d terrorized her young sons, pitchfork in hand, and Sansa exchanged a significant look with Ghost. 

 _You do it,_ his red eyes seemed to say, and she sighed.

She dropped the winter coat she’d been holding and gently pressed her mother back. “That bird might’ve been controlling him,” she said reluctantly. “We’ll have to leave him for the mayor to deal with.”

Cat protested until Ned pulled her away. They had a brief conversation—argument, most likely—and when they came back, Cat settled for throwing Jaime Lannister a nasty look.

(And a swift kick in the ribs, but Sansa and Ghost both pretended they didn’t notice that part.)

They called the police but the media got there first, surprising no one.

“Can you explain how Mr. Lannister possessed all those people and turned them into Gold Cloaks?” a reporter asked Sansa.

“We don’t know exactly—” she began, but another reporter interrupted her, asking Ghost, “Why are your eyes red? Where did you get your powers? Any relation to Elsa?”

Ghost stared at him blankly. “Elsa isn’t real,” he said.

“Mr. and Mrs. Stark, do you plan to take legal action against Jaime Lannister?” someone shouted from the crowd.

“Excuse me, can you tell us about how this traumatic experience has—” Arya shoved the woman away from Rickon, who paled and shrank back behind Bran.

Among the barrage of question, one was repeated over and over until it felt like a hundred voices were asking her, “Is there a chance an incident like this could happen again?”

Sansa stared at them all helplessly, wishing she could hide behind her big brother, too. But her big brother wasn’t here, and neither was Theon or even Jon Snow, and her parents didn’t know they were her parents.

“You!” Ghost said suddenly. He pointed to a woman in the crowd. “What was your question, again?”

A surprised silence fell over the crowd, and the woman jerked back. “Oh, uh... I just wanted to, uh, know what your, um, names are?” She seemed to regain her confidence, or at least her composure. “Or, if you can’t tell us that, then what should we call you?”

Sansa looked at the boy who’d helped her save her family, wondering what his answer would be. He stared back at her and did the last thing she’d expected him to do.

He smiled.

“Ghost,” he said, still looking right at her. “Call me Ghost.”

A strange warmth unfurled inside her, like the petals of a blooming flower. Her lips curved into a shy smile, and she didn’t look away from Ghost as she answered, “And I’m Lady.”

Then she set her mouth in a determined line, turning towards the cameras. She stared directly into one and said, loud and clear, “We don’t know what’s going on yet, but we _will_ find out.”

“And we’ll protect you,” Ghost spoke up, laying a hand on her shoulder, adding his strength to hers. “We’ll protect your families, your friends, your neighbors.”

“We’ll protect this city!” Lady agreed.

* * *

It snowed that night, and Varys decided to go for a walk. He strolled through the streets of a city still reeling from the day’s catastrophe, aimless, his mind wandering.

One Little Bird returned to him at last, weakened from its time in captivity, but free nonetheless. _I mustn’t skirt around the truth. It will be_ months _before th_ _e creature_ _has recovered enough to awaken someone else’s powers, and it will be_ _the_ _same for all th_ _e ones_ _that follow._

His Little Birds were not meant to force the memories of those long dead into the minds of the living, and he had little doubt Baelish already knew this.

 _What is his purpose? I know the game we play, I wrote half the rules, but I do not know_ _the_ _end goal._ _Is it power he wants? Or does he covet Catelyn Tully? It would come as no surprise to me to find he has learned_ nothing _after all this time._

Lost in thought, he heard their words long before he recognized their voices.

“I don’t see why _I_ had to come along.”

“I can’t carry all this by myself, and it’s not my fault your siblings decided we needed to _‘prove ourselves worthy’_ or whatever the hell Arya said.”

“Oh, so when it’s all sunshine and rainbows they’re the siblings _you_ always wanted, but when they do something to annoy you, they’re suddenly _my_ siblings?”

 _Isn’t that—_ Varys changed directions and ducked into the bus shelter, careful to keep his back to them.

“That’s right!”

“This isn’t my fault, either, you know! I’m not the one who turned you into a Gold Cloak.”

“And _I_ didn’t force you to sleep through Rickon’s rescue.”

“It was a trying day!”

“What, did you find a pea under your mattress?”

“UGH! That’s it, I can’t be in a confined space with you!”

“What— You’re not seriously going to walk back, are you? Sansa, those bags are too heavy!”

“Then _you_ can take the one with the pop bottles and _I’ll_ take the chips! And you know what? You can hold the fireworks bag, too!”

“No way! Maybe if you hand over the cookies, Ms. Greedy Guts!”

“Fine, Jon, have them! Have ALL of them!”

They argued until the bus got there, and Varys wisely decided he’d observed enough for one day. He stood in the shelter for a good long while after the bus pulled away, thinking.

When it came down to it they’d worked together to get the job done, yet they need more than that. They need to hone their skills, learn the rules of the game, and most of all, they needed to trust each other.

“All in due time,” he told himself. And then he smiled.

The White Wolf and the Red Wolf, he’d told his Little Birds, but those titles belonged to a King and Queen ages past, long gone.

 _They are different people now,_ he’d reminded himself time and again, and yet some things were simply ingrained in a person’s soul, it seemed.

“To Lady and Ghost,” he murmured, and watched the snow fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Arya may or may not have watched the chase scene through Little Rodentia in Zootopia a billion times. Also, I'd just like to state, for the record, that Catelyn was NOT a-okay with her twelve year old son climbing a 100-foot tower. He ran off before she could stop him, and she didn't want to bring him to the Kingslayer's attention by calling out to him or running after him.
> 
> Anyways. I don't know how this happened? These first three chapters feel like their own fic and yet they are literally just the beginning? I feel like I just wrote a really low budget superhero origins movie? Why have I done this to myself?
> 
> Really, I do not plan for future chapters to be this long. About half this length, probably.
> 
> (I was gonna make it rain at the end, cause what's an origin story without a final, heartfelt scene in the rain, right? But it's winter, and given everything the Starks represent, snow felt more appropriate. Plus, Jon and Sansa are not ready for 'heartfelt.')


	4. Ser Piggy

Horseface dove out of the way just in time to avoid the tentacle, cradling her video camera to her chest with one hand and making sure her mask stayed in place with the other.

“ _Can’t you find a safer hobby?_ _”_ Sansa had asked her the night she’d uploaded her first video of Lady and Ghost battling a supervillain. (Daenerys Targaryen dressed in Dothraki warrior clothing from the old days, demanding people call her ‘Khaleesi’ and spewing dragon fire everywhere, Horseface recalled with no small amount of glee.)

“ _It’s not a hobby,”_ Arya had huffed. _“It’s a public service! I’m bringing news to the good people of Westeros."_

“ _You’re giving Mom and Dad aneurysms, is what you’re doing!”_

“ _No, I’m not, because they don’t know about it, and they never will!”_ She’d narrowed her eyes at her sister threateningly.

“ _They don’t know_ yet _, but they will, Arya, because people above the age of forty do in fact use the In_ _ternet! It’s a huge part of our mother’s job, in case you’ve forgotten!”_

“ _I haven’t, but it’s not like I’m being_ stupid _about it. I’m totally anonymous—”_

“I _recognized you. Arry is a bit obvious!”_

Arya had been forced to acknowledge she was right. _“I’ll pick a better_ _alias_ _next time.”_

“ _And they’ll still see through it, because they’re your parents and they’ve been raising you for what I have no doubt were_ _fourteen_ _long,_ hellish _years.”_

“ _Only because they had to_ _put up with_ you _the entire time.”_ She’d grinned cheekily upon seeing the look on her sister’s face. _“They’d need to look at my blog for more than five seconds to recognize me, and I doubt they’d bother. If they want info on the latest attacks they’ll just watch the official news—_ _y_ _ou know they don’t trust anything else. Adults are boring like that.”_

“ _Arya,_ please _. You could get seriously hurt.”_

The genuine, honest-to-gods _worry_ in Sansa’s eyes had made her hesitate, but in the end she’d only promised, _“I’ll be careful.”_

And she _was_ being careful. Standing ten feet away from the action was _much_ more careful than standing _five_ feet away, and it wasn’t her fault the Kraken King had suddenly decided he wanted to squeeze her to death with every fibre of his being.

_I knew I should’ve brought the pitchfork._

The Kraken King reached for her again, but Ghost suddenly dropped down from a ledge above her, ice bursting from his hands, creating a shield between them and the tentacle. An arm snaked around her waist from behind, the owner jumping away and taking Horseface with her, and Horseface struggled against the person’s hold until the wind whipped a crimson braid in her face.

“Thanks, Lady!” she said. She held up her camera before Lady could respond. “Anything to say to the good people of Westeros?”

Lady set her down on solid earth and glowered at her. “Find shelter during attacks and _don’t leave_ until we’ve put things back to normal.”

“Sound advice!” chirped Horseface.

Lady gave her one last dark look before leaping back into the fray to help her partner, who struggled to dodge both of the Kraken King’s tentacles and three of his arms as well.

Horseface kept her camera trained on the fight as she commented, “I don’t know about you, viewers, but I think our superheroes are really improving! I doubt we’ll be seeing anymore mishaps like the one last week against the Khaleesi—”

As she spoke, Lady pulled a tentacle in the opposite direction Ghost had gestured to. Ghost tripped over it, falling headlong into the enemy’s grasp, and when Lady went to save him he accidentally froze her legs to one of the Kraken King’s arms.

Horseface covered the camera lens for a moment, watching as Lady and Ghost screamed at each other, both of them dangling upside down at the Kraken King’s mercy.

“I advise viewers prone to extreme secondhand embarrassment to avert your eyes,” she said into the microphone, and then uncovered the lens.

* * *

_Sansa follows the wolf, crunching snow beneath her boots as she picks her way through the woods, hesitating only when the creature branches off from the river._

“ _Where are you leading me?” she wants call out. “Can I trust you?” But what if the answer is no?_

_So she says nothing, and when the wolf looks back at her, she resumes her steps._

I can trust her, _she_ _thinks_ _._ Those yellow-gold eyes of hers... Those are _my_ eyes when I transform.

I feel as if she’s a part of me. As if she always has been.

 _She_ _does_ _not falter again as th_ _e trees grow sparse and they_ _come upon a small clearing._

Oh, _she thought._ I know this place, but I don’t remember it looking quite like this...

_The large pool of water she recognizes, but not the color of it. Murky blue-green has darkened to black. As always there stands a massive tree watching over it proudly, but the bark has never been this pale, nor the leaves so red._

And there was no face carved into the trunk, no red sap bleeding from the eyes... I would’ve remembered that. It would’ve haunted my dreams.

_It already haunts her dreams, it seems, without her having even known of its existence._

Perhaps I’ve seen it in a book somewhere? That must be it.

“ _Why have you brought me here?” she asks the wolf, and her voice shatters the dream world. Her surroundings blur, becoming shapeless colors before fading away entirely._

_The last thing to vanish is the wolf, settled at roots of the weeping tree._

* * *

Jon left Biology the way he did most days: irritated beyond belief and wishing he’d chosen to suffer through Physics or Chemistry instead.

“—and then she said, ‘No thanks to you!’ Can you believe that?” Jon demanded, out of breath from regaling Sam the full story of his latest argument with Sansa. This one had almost led the teacher to give them detention, but Sansa had managed to talk her out of it.

Which was the _least_ she could do, in Jon’s opinion. She’d started it in the first place.

“Hmmm? Sure,” mumbled Sam.

“Right? The _nerve_ of her!”

“Uh-huh. The nerve.”

Jon eyed Sam with suspicion that quickly turned to concern. Sam looked... _down_.

“Did something happen at home? Did your father...?” Jon asked haltingly. He didn’t like to bring up Randyll Tarly if he could help it.

“No, no,” Sam hurried to assure him. “We haven’t heard from him since he tried to convince us to tell the courts we don’t need anymore child support.”

“Oh. Good.” That incident had been over four months ago. With any luck, the bastard was finally done tormenting his ex-wife and kids. “So what is it, then?”

“It’s nothing,” he said, but Jon took one look at his blushing face and translated that to, “It’s Gilly.”

“Sam?”

Jon and Sam whipped around to find Gilly standing there, which was odd because her next class was on the other end of the school. _What’s odd is that Sam didn’t goggle at Gilly_ _even_ once _during Biology! How did I not notice that?_ (Jon knew exactly how. He’d been too caught up in arguing with Sansa.)

What happened next was odder still. Sam stared at Gilly, frozen, opening and closing his mouth like a goldfish, and then he turned tail and _ran_.

Jon gaped after him. _What the hell...?_ He turned back to Gilly, who looked unhappy but far from surprised by this outcome, and tried to think of a way to ask her what the hell had just happened without scaring her.

He’d always got the sense that he intimidated her a little, and they didn’t really spend time together unless Sam or Alys Karstark was there.

(“It’s because you’re a graceless brute,” Sansa had informed him two weeks into the semester, but Jon always preferred to dwell on the words of sweet little six-year-old Sansa, instead. “You’re the nicest boy I know,” she’d confessed to him, her cheeks turning a radiant pink. “When I get married someday, my husband is going to be nice, like you.”)

Sure enough, Gilly started wringing her hands the moment it occurred to her she was alone with Jon. “I— When you see Sam next—” Her eyes darted from his face to the floor and back. She took a deep breath. “Can you tell him I didn’t mind? I thought it was lovely. Please tell him that. He shouldn’t listen to... I thought it was lovely.”

She turned on her heel and left. Jon stared after her in bewilderment, wondering what on earth was going on with those two, before remembering that he had to get to gym class and this mystery would have to wait until later.

He was five minutes late, so Brienne made him run an extra lap. _Think of it as training,_ he told himself. _Running is a valuable skill when you have to battle supervillains every other day._

It didn’t help. He already knew how to run. What he really needed was a guide on getting along with your superhero partner.

 _It’s not that we don’t get along... She’s great. Brave, determined, quick on her feet... But we’re on such different wavelengths._ He went right, she went left. He charged right in, she hung back. He faced things head-on, she schemed her way around them. The only thing they seemed to have in common was a desire to help people—and to keep Arya Stark from getting herself killed. _And those are both far easier said than done._

Jon finished his extra lap, panting for breath, lungs burning and muscles aching. That was another problem with being a superhero—the suit protected him from pain and injuries, but when it was gone he found himself exhausted and sore all over.

It was getting better, though. It was getting better all the time. _It’ll be the same for Lady and I, won’t it? The more we fight together, the more we’ll get used to each other, right? We’ll understand each other better._

It would never be boring, at least. _Lady’s a lot of things, but_ _never boring._

“Out of shape, Jon Snow?”

Jon immediately straightened up, removing his hand from the stitch in his side. “No,” he wheezed.

Ygritte laughed at him. “They don’t make you run laps for fencing, I suppose.”

“And they do for archery?”

“No,” she said. “Soccer. Really keeps you fit. You should’ve tried out for the co-ed team.”

“Didn’t have time for it,” he reminded her. “Some of us have to work.” _And try not to fail senior year a second time, and_ _help keep the apartment clean, and take turns doing the groceries_ _, and rescue hapless civilians possessed by_ _glowing_ _birds_ _of doom_ _—_

“Then quit fencing. We don’t get to carry around phallic symbols, but you’ll certainly have your fair share of testosterone-fuelled meatheads for company.”

“I’m sure you and Val make up for it,” he said dryly. “You know the fencing team has more girls than boys, right? Arya Stark, Alys Karstark, Elia Sand, Meera Reed—”

“And how many of those girls are part of your little Night’s Watch club?”

“None of them wanted to be part of it.” Besides Arya, but she already had her extra lessons with Syrio Forel, a fencing master.

“I wonder why that is,” scoffed Ygritte, and Jon knew she had a point.

“Have you all chosen your partners?” Brienne called out, and the rest of the class chorused back, “Yes!”

Another reason he didn’t like being late and running the extra lap. He missed important info. “What do we need partners for?”

Ygritte grinned at him. “You know nothing, Jon Snow.”

“That’s very funny, but really, what are we doing?”

He never found out, because at that moment a shriek sounded from just beyond the gym. His classmates all exchanged nervous looks and inched towards the exit that led outside, while Brienne blew her whistle and urged them all to keep calm.

Another shriek, and... _I_ _s that..._ oinking _?_

Half the class screamed and ran for the doors, ignoring Brienne’s shouted instructions to stay put.

Jon just groaned. _Here we go again._

* * *

Arya spent her lunch break on her blog, scrolling through the comments on yesterday’s fight with the Kraken King.

_Excitement over a sea monster come to life, doubts over whether Lady and Ghost can keep this city safe, gross comments about Lady’s skintight suit for me to delete, jokes about Ghost’s voluptuous hair that I am definitely leaving up... Aha! A compliment on my dedication to journalism!_

Not that she did it to get compliments, but there was no denying recognition was nice.

“What are you looking at?” Gendry asked when she smiled secretively to herself, a hint of exasperation in his voice.

Okay, so maybe this was the third time in a week she’d ignored her friends at lunch in favor of her phone. She reluctantly decided to put it away for now, if only to avoid arousing suspicion. It was just _such_ a nice distraction from her worry about Bran with his recent nightmares and glum silences, not to mention Rickon and his outbursts of terror disguised as temper tantrums.

 _They must’ve been so scared. The statue of Baelor, the drop ride tower, they were both so high up... And Bran_ fell _. He would’ve_ died _if Lady hadn’t caught him._

That was what had changed her mind about the superheroes—Ghost had saved her and her mother from the Gold Cloaks, Lady had caught Bran in the nick of time, and together, they’d rescued Rickon. So the rest of Westeros could scoff at Lady and Ghost all they wanted, but as far as Arya was concerned? They were heroes, and they deserved every ounce of support she could scrounge up for them.

“She’s probably on her blog again,” said Hot Pie through a mouthful of ham and cheese. “Watching Ghost and Lady make fools of themselves.”

Arya dropped her phone. It landed on the cafeteria table with a loud clatter, and Gendry sighed. “We agreed to pretend we didn’t know, remember?” he chastised Hot Pie.

He was ignored. “Can I borrow your horse mask?”

“Hot Pie! You’ll give me away!” Arya hissed. She glanced around warily. “How did you two meatheads figure it out?”

“If you didn’t want us to know, you should’ve picked a better name than ‘Arry’ for your first disguise,” said Gendry, not bothering to lower his voice.

Arya wanted to throw something at him. So she did. “You sound like my sister. She told me it was dangerous and I should stop.”

“It’s like we’re the same person,” he said flatly, picking the banana peel off his nose. “It’s dangerous, and you should stop.”

“But I won’t.”

“But you won’t,” he agreed with obvious resignation.

“So _can_ I borrow your horse mask?” Hot Pie asked again. “Because I really—”

He was interrupted by the sound of panicked screams and...oinking?

Arya dove for her bag as the students all around her freaked out, cursing herself for leaving her camera at home as she dug through its contents. At least she had her phone, and she hadn’t forgotten the most important thing...

Gendry stared at the mask she produced with a mixture of disgust and skepticism. “What the hell kind of disguise is that?”

Arya looked around her to make sure no one was watching, and then she put the mask on. “Call me...Underfoot.”

“Because...your face...is underneath a foot...” He closed his eyes as if in pain. “I don’t know you. We’re not friends.”

“Of course we’re not, I’m Underfoot,” said Underfoot. “And now...I’m off to investigate!”

And she was off.

* * *

Jon headed towards the oinking, all too aware of the stinging in his wrist, wondering how he could possibly shake off Ygritte before he transformed.

It was his own fault for coming with her. He should’ve just run out of the building with the rest of the class and slipped away from them afterwards, but he’d wanted to make sure nothing happened to her. _I don’t know what I was thinking. She doesn’t need protection._ She looked more prepared than he did, holding that hockey stick, a goalie mask on her face.

“ _You can run for your life, Jon Snow, but_ I _don’t trust those bumbling superheroes to get the job done,”_ she’d told him when he’d questioned her decision to go deeper into the school.

“ _So school will be cancelled for the day!”_ he’d said, trying to fight back a stab of annoyance. He and Lady always tried their best. There wasn’t exactly an Intro to Superhero-ing course they could take. _“What do you care?”_

He’d seen her expression harden just before she’d put the goalie mask on. _“I want to see who got possessed this time.”_

He’d understood immediately. _“You think it was a student?”_

“ _Well, I sure as hell hope it wasn’t a teacher. They’d probably bury us in homework or make us write an exam or something.”_

They hadn’t talked much after that, but Jon couldn’t stop thinking about the possibility of this supervillain being someone he _knew_. Not someone he’d heard of because they were rich and famous, like Jaime Lannister and Daenerys Targaryen, or _in_ famous like Balon Greyjoy, but someone he might’ve passed in the halls everyday. Someone he might’ve even talked to before. Someone who might’ve sat behind him in one of his classes or worked on a project with him once.

His damn tattoo was on fire now, and he could hear someone shuffling towards them from the hallway to the right. _Maybe I could tell Ygritte I need to go to the bathroom—_

The shuffler rounded the corner, and Jon recoiled. He’d tried his best to prepare himself for the possibility Ygritte had presented, but he hadn’t _dreamed_ that the someone he knew could be _his_ _best friend_.

His best friend, only with pink skin and a pig snout and a curly tail.

Ygritte raised her hockey stick threateningly, and Sam let out a squeal, nearly falling over in his haste to back away.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded, shoving the stick hockey down. “That’s _Sam_!”

“Trying to save our friend!” Ygritte shot back. “I think we’ve seen enough attacks by now to know he’s not going to just magically turn back to normal on his own!”

“And you think hitting him with a hockey stick will help?”

“Yeah, I think it might!”

Sam ran back down the hallway he’d come from, and without another word to Jon, Ygritte chased after him.

Jon swore but didn’t go after her. The only way he’d get anything done was if he transformed, so he headed for the nearest janitor’s closet. Unfortunately it was a good distance away, giving him plenty of time to imagine all the awful things Ygritte could be doing to Sam with that hockey stick in her misguided attempt to save him.

He passed several students panicking over their new pig snouts on the way, but he could see they hadn’t become mindless puppets like the Gold Cloaks knighted by the Kingslayer. _It’s harmless. ...Mostly._

By the time he reached the closet he was surprised his wrist wasn’t giving off smoke. He practically lunged for the handle, but before he could turn it the door swung open on its own. His reflexes were too slow for him to avoid getting smacked in the face.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t—” the person abruptly cut off.

 _I know that voice._ Jon stopped rubbing his nose and opened his eyes to find Lady staring at him.

There was the oddest swooping sensation in the pit of his stomach, like he’d just walked off a cliff without warning. He’d been stressing over keeping his identity secret ever since he’d first transformed into Ghost, but never once had it occurred to him to worry what would happen if he ran into Lady without the mask on.

He felt exposed, almost _naked_ under that wolf-eyed gaze, but to his surprise Lady seemed just as thrown off. _She doesn’t know, does she? How could she possibly recognize me just by looking at me? Arya and Bran and the rest didn’t, and the Starks might as well be my second family—_

Lady suddenly cleared her throat. “Sorry about your face. Have you seen an anthropomorphic pig anywhere?”

All his frustration at Ygritte came rushing out. “Yeah, I’ve seen him, and he’s not a pig! He’s my best friend and his name is Samwell Tarly!”

Lady blinked at him. “Actually, he’s going by Ser Piggy at the moment—”

“He’s my best friend!” Jon repeated emphatically. “And he’s nothing like the Kingslayer or the Khaleesi or the Kraken King. He’d never hurt a fly!”

“Okay,” she said, and though she was obviously trying to soothe him, he caught a prickly edge in her voice that she didn’t even seem to notice. “Don’t worry, Ghost and I will turn him back to normal.”

 _I’ve been_ trying _to get to that part, but_ _I keep getting_ _slowed down_ _by_ _forceful_ _redhead_ _s_ _._ Still, she’d been plenty gentle with Rickon, and when Jon had relied on her to catch Bran before he fell to his death, she’d come through.

 _I was desperate, then,_ _with no other choice_ _, and she came through. S_ _urely_ _I can_ _rely on_ _her_ _for_ _this, too._

“Sam wouldn’t hurt a fly,” he repeated, trying to keep the hostility out of his voice this time. “So please don’t hurt _him_.”

Lady narrowed her eyes, scrutinizing him like she was trying to figure something out. Jon did his best not to squirm. She could be so _intense_ sometimes, and it never failed to leave him feeling off-balance.

“I won’t hurt your friend,” she said at last. “See you around, pretty boy.”

Jon stood stock-still until the end of her braid had whipped around the corner. Then he dove through the closet door and closed it behind him just before the change overtook him.

“Pretty boy,” Ghost grumbled to himself as he pushed a mop out of his face. “Shot through the heart, right there.”

And he couldn’t even call her on it. One of the drawbacks of having a secret identity.

That hardly mattered right now, though. Right now, he had to follow after his superhero partner and make sure she wasn’t planning to send his best friend to the slaughterhouse.

_I guess this is my chance to see what kind of person Lady really is, deep down._

Somehow the thought made him nervous, and even a little sad; he knew wouldn’t lose Sam today—he wouldn’t allow it—but Lady?

That was out of his hands.

* * *

Lady twirled her flute in her hands, listening to Gilly’s pleading without a lick of sympathy.

“He won’t show,” she said loudly. “I’m afraid your Ser Piggy isn’t _gallant_ enough to come rescue his princess fair.”

A hiss of protest from off-stage. Lady cut her her eyes to the right in warning before quickly settling them on her prisoner’s face again.

“He’ll come,” said Gilly, glaring through her tears. “He’s my friend.”

“When?” Lady’s voice was smooth as glass and honey-sweet. “And what should I do with you in the meantime, Princess?”

A flicker of movement in the shadows. _Our leading man has arrived, I see. Good. I don’t know how_ _much_ _long_ _er_ _I can keep this up._

“Perhaps I’ll cut off that pretty hair of yours,” Lady mused, reaching out to touch the strands.

Ser Piggy stumbled down the far aisle and climbed the stairs at the edge of the stage, squealing angrily the whole while.

Lady laughed, the sound just skirting the line between truly disturbing and over-the-top Disney villain. “Come to steal the Princess back from me?”

“ _OINK!_ ”

“I see you have a sword,” said Lady, nodding at the weapon in question. “And I have none! That hardly seems fair, does it?”

He took his sword and laid it down on the floor. Lady doubted he’d drawn it even once before now, especially with the intent to harm, but it never hurt to be careful.

She grabbed Gilly (gently) by the hair, and Ser Piggy charged at her. _That’s right...a little closer..._

Ghost came out of nowhere, knocking her back and tugging Gilly behind him. “What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded, and the spell broke.

The rope binding Gilly’s hands vanished, and her face was suddenly dry, no tears in sight. Lady closed her eyes and counted to ten as Arya yelled, “CUT!” from off-stage.

When she opened them again she couldn’t tell who was more confused: Ser Piggy or Ghost.

“You’re interrupting the final battle scene,” she seethed.

“ _What_?”

Lady threw up her hands. “Do you know how hard it is to get a tiny thimble from a supervillain without beating him up first?”

“What?” Ghost asked again.

“You know what? I give up. _You_ try it, and if you can’t do it, then _you_ can take the blame when Jon Snow comes calling with a—a, a lawsuit, or something!”

His mouth hung open in shock. Lady wished a fly would zoom right in, and then he’d swallow it and gag on the memory for days after.

“ _One_ of you has to help him!” Gilly insisted, and Lady felt bad. They’d had an agreement, after all—Gilly would go along with her illusion, and Lady would save Sam.

Besides, Lady owed Sam for earlier today. Or at least, _Sansa_ did.

“Yeah, I’m getting all of this on camera,” Arya called to them. “So you better do something heroic soon! He’s getting away!”

Lady leaped off the stage and ran after him. Ghost pulled ahead of her and used one of the seats along the aisle to vault over Ser Piggy’s head, landing in front of him and blocking him off.

She closed in from behind, and Ser Piggy looked between her and Ghost, panicked squeals escaping his snout.

“A thimble, you said?” asked Ghost, scanning his eyes over Ser Piggy’s armor.

“That’s what Gilly thought, and she’d know better than we would.”

A strange smile flitted across Ghost’s face. “No doubt,” he agreed.

Lady ignored his bizarre amusement and continued looking for the thimble. “Aha!” She finally caught sight of it.

“Where—?”

There was a string tied around Ser Piggy’s wrist, and from it the thimble dangled.

“His wrist. Your side.”

Ghost had his face screwed up in concentration, but suddenly he relaxed. His hand darted out quick as a flash, and when he yanked his arm back the thimble was in his grasp.

He iced the bird over the second it had fully formed, his timing so exact she thought it might very well be a reflex for him now.

_...Nah. Probably a fluke. I bet he jumped the gun and happened to get lucky._

They were still so new at this, and she didn’t like the idea that he could’ve mastered his powers already while she was still feeling hers out, trying to get a sense of what she could do and what she couldn’t.

 _But I made some progress today, at least. I couldn’t just make an image of Gilly appear, I needed the_ real _Gilly._

_I need something to base my illusions on. A grain of truth to make the lie believable._

A whisper on the wind and the purple mist dissipated. The bird broke free from the ice and flew away through an open skylight.

“I wonder where they go?” murmured Ghost.

 _See? He doesn’t know everything. He’s still learning, too,_ Lady comforted herself.

“Sam!” Gilly shouted, making her way to the other end of the stage so she could take the stairs down.

Ghost kept a hold on Sam as he regained consciousness and straightened up, eyeing him worriedly. “Easy, there,” he said.

“What... What happened? There was a bird...”

“It’s gone now,” Lady told him. “How do you feel?”

“Uh. Fine, I guess...?” He rubbed his head, eyes darting all over the place as if he were trying to make sense of his surroundings. Then he caught sight of Gilly, racing down the aisle towards them.

_I always thought the phrase ‘red as a brick’ was an exaggeration...apparently not._

“Sam! Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I— I— I’m f-fine,” he stammered. “I didn’t— Did I hurt you? Did I hurt anybody?”

Lady watched his face fall, watched his features twist with guilt. “You didn’t hurt a fly,” she said, and the relief in his eyes was well worth the indignity of agreeing with Jon Snow.

“You did forget something, though,” said Ghost, and before Sam could work himself up over it, he handed over the thimble. It looked far less ornate than it had while holding some mysterious evil force inside it, but also more charming, in Lady’s opinion. _Sometimes simple is best._

Ghost caught Lady’s eye and tilted his head to the side, and Lady followed him back to the stage so Sam and Gilly could have some degree of privacy—as much as Lady and Ghost could grant with their heightened hearing.

“I owe you an apology,” Ghost said suddenly, and Lady looked at him, startled. He ran a gloved hand through his hair, tugged on the curls sheepishly. “I should’ve known you wouldn’t hurt Gilly.”

“You should’ve,” she agreed, all her irritation rushing back to her in an instant, but his red eyes were so earnest she found herself softening. “I’ll take it as a compliment to my acting skills.”

“You were great.” His lips curved into a small smile. “Ever considered a career on stage if this superhero gig doesn’t work out?”

“Don’t need to. It’ll work out just fine once you learn your place,” she teased.

He looked strangely intrigued. “My place being...?”

 _Following my every command,_ she almost said, but she couldn’t get the words out. Her tongue would stumble all over itself if she tried to say those words, she was sure, and then he’d laugh at her.

So instead she lifted her chin and delivered her best smirk. “ _Somebody’s_ gotta be the sidekick.”

The spark of interest in his eyes fizzled out, but his smile grew. “And it couldn’t possibly be _you_ , of course.”

“Of course.”

“ _Annnnnnnd_ that’s a wrap!” came Arya’s voice suddenly. She marched over to centre stage, phone in hand. “That was much better than earlier, Lady! You’re way better at this banter stuff than playing the villain.”

“Excuse me?” Coming from anyone else, she might’ve taken that as a compliment, too. But coming from her little sister? It clearly had to be taken as an insult.

Y’know. Just on principle.

“You’re a total ham,” Arya said, without the slightest hint of remorse or fear. “Gilly was way better.”

 _Of course she has no qualms about insulting someone with superpowers. This is_ Arya _. Why would she?_

Ghost didn’t seem to hear a word of their conversation. “What... What is that on your face?”

“Oh, this?” Arya touched her mask. “I’m Underfoot!”

Ghost looked to Lady in horrified befuddlement, but she just shrugged, secretly enjoying his pain.

“Well, I better go. Clock is ticking.” Or rather, her tattoo was pulsing in warning beneath the grey fabric of her suit. “Thanks for your help, Underfoot. Later, _sidekick_.”

She ran for the exit off-stage, throwing them a wink over her shoulder. Ghost shook his head, smiling again, and Lady decided that despite their differences, she was glad to have him as her partner.

* * *

Jon didn’t get the full story until his lunch break was almost over.

“Gilly mentioned to me yesterday that she’s been learning how to sew, but she keeps poking herself with the needle. And, well, my mom must have a dozen of thimbles just lying around, so I thought I’d bring one to school today for Gilly, right?”

Jon nodded. He’d figured out on his own that the thimble was meant for Gilly, though he hadn’t known any of the details.

Sam wrung his hands, looking more than a little self-conscious, and continued, “Only, when I tried to give it to her this morning, Joffrey Baratheon saw and...” 

He couldn't seem to bring himself to keep going, but that was all Jon really needed to hear anyways; it was easy enough to fill in the blanks.

“That piece of shit,” Jon said, disgusted. “I should’ve known this was all his fault.”

“It wasn’t as bad as you might think,” Sam assured him quickly. “Sansa talked him into walking away before he could really get going.”

The way Sam phrased it had Jon raising his eyebrows, more than a little skeptic. “She told him to stop?”

Sam winced like he’d been hoping Jon wouldn’t catch that. “Not...exactly.”

“Not exactly.” Jon shook his head in disdain. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

 _She used to be so sweet,_ he lamented, remembering her declaration that she’d marry someone nice like him someday. _I’m not sure I’d still count as_ nice _, especially in Sansa’s eyes, but Joffrey_ definitely _doesn’t count._

_What on earth does she see in him?_

“Doing alright, Tarly?” Ygritte plunked down into the seat beside Jon.

Sam smiled at her. “I’m doing just fine.”

“Good.” She stole Jon’s package of mini Oreos and ignored his squawk of protest. “That Baratheon brat isn’t worth the time of day.”

Jon almost pouted at the realization that Ygritte had known about this morning’s incident before he had, but then something else occurred to him.

“You wanna explain where the hell you’ve been?” he asked her.

“ _You_ wanna explain where the hell _you’ve_ been?” she countered, and Jon did pout then. She tossed him a cookie and laughed when it bounced off his nose.

“I’ve watched the latest video on that blog, you know, the one run by the girl with the masks?” he said, and Ygritte and Sam both nodded. “I was surprised you weren’t in it.”

“I got thrown off the trail. Couldn’t keep up with Ser Piggy.” She toasted Sam with Jon’s snack-pack. Sam immediately blushed, but Jon narrowed his eyes at her. Couldn’t keep up? That was a lie if Jon had ever heard one. Jon and Sam could somehow morph into one being to combine their speed and Ygritte would still outrun them.

But then, where _had_ she been? Only one answer came to him.

 _She couldn’t do it,_ Jon realized, a warm rush of affection for Ygritte welling up inside him. _She couldn’t hurt Sam, even if he wasn’t exactly_ Sam _at the time._

Jon snatched his snacks from her without warning, grinning when she tried to swipe them back.

“Now, Ygritte, sharing is caring. We learned that in Kindergarten.”

“Maybe _you_ did. _I_ learned how to make boys cry.”

“I learned magic,” said Sam unexpectedly.

Jon and Ygritte stopped fighting over the snacks and stared at Sam instead.

“I’m a wizard,” he said. “Sorry. Should’ve told you sooner.”

Jon looked at Ygritte. Ygritte looked back. Then Jon tipped some mini Oreos into Ygritte’s palm, and they faced Sam again.

“Ready, aim, fire!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From this point on, there won't be any new POVs. It'll just be Sansa, Jon, and either Arya, Bran or Catelyn every chapter. And Varys every once in a while. I thought about using more characters, but honestly, I'll have a hard enough time juggling the POVs as it is.
> 
> Anyways, hope you guys enjoyed this chapter and I hope you're all having a wonderful day!


	5. Three-Eyed Raven

_Bran_ _cracks_ _open_ _the trap door and_ _peers_ _over the edge, searching for the source of_ _the_ _strange noises. The sight that_ _awaits_ _him_ _is_ _nothing he expected. Tywin Lannister_ _owns_ _the city’s largest, most successful business, and people_ _call_ _it the Pride of Westeros. Cersei Lannister_ _is_ _the mayor’s wife, and people_ _whisper_ _that behind the scenes, she_ _is_ _the one_ really _in charge._

 _And yet here she_ _is_ _in the attic of the Red Keep, kissing her cousin, the man set to inherit the company that ha_ _s_ _been in her family for generations._

 _They_ _notice_ _Bran before_ _he can even think to run away, and Jaime Lannister drags him up into the room by his collar, kicking the trap door shut behind him so no one can hear his protests._ _Cersei strides towards him, a fury in her eyes that has him instinctively shrinking away. Only there’s nowhere to go; Jaime stands behind him, gripping his shoulders so tightly it hurts, and he knows he won’t be able to break free._

“ _If you tell_ anyone _, I will_ ruin _you,” Cersei seethes, right in his face. “I will destroy your family. One word from me, and your father will lose his job and be banned from the Red Keep. One word from me, and the Tyrells will raise your mother’s taxes so high her business will crumble to ash. I’ll have that golden boy brother of yours kicked out of his university in the big city. I’ll ship your ratty sister off to reform school, and that delinquent you call your little brother, too. I’ll send your pretty, dainty sister to live with the Lannister branch overseas. She’ll be so_ grateful _to the woman who gave her the opportunity of a lifetime, and after a year or two there, she’ll come back despising your family as the pathetic riffraff you are. And as for_ you _—”_

_Jaime cuts her off then. “I think he gets the point. He’ll keep his mouth good and shut, I’m sure.” He turns Bran around and smirks down at him. “Won’t you?”_

_Bran wants to say no. He wants to hold his head high, glare boldly into those hateful eyes, and say that the Starks are_ good _, and they’ll never fall to corrupt villains like the Lannisters._

_He wants to stand up for himself. For his family._

_Instead he nods. He can’t get a single word out. He can barely even breath_ _e_ _._ _Jaime_   _releases him and opens the trap door,_ _shoves him_ _through_ _—_

_Bran falls through open air, the wind whistling in his ears._

_He falls, and there is no one to catch him._

“ _The things I do for love,” Jaime Lannister says, and Bran wake_ _s—_

Launching upright, gasping for breath, telling himself over and over, _It’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real!_

_It’s not real. Lady caught me._

Bran grabbed the prayer wheel above his headboard, the one his mother had made for him after he’d confessed to her he’d been having trouble sleeping since the Kingslayer.

“ _I’m afraid I don’t know how to make dream-catchers,”_ she’d told him, carding her fingers through his hair. _“But maybe this will help somehow. Maybe the Gods will keep the bad dreams at bay.”_

He held the wheel in his hands and prayed to the Seven, and the Old Gods, too.

 _Make it stop,_ he prayed. _I’m so tired. I’m so scared. I don’t want to fall anymore._

He tried to picture the effigies of the Seven he’d seen in the Great Sept, and the Heart Tree in the woods outside Winterfell that he’d visited mere hours ago. He tried to imagine the smooth bark, the faded red leaves, the murky blue-green pool at the foot of the tree.

Instead his mind spun through fractured memories of that day in the attic, a broken record that wouldn’t leave him alone.

The rust creeping along the staircase railings. _“_ _I_ _wil_ _l_ ruin _you... your father... your mother... c_ _rumble to ash...”_ Initials carved into the wood of the trap door. _“_ _I’ll destroy your family... that golden boy brother of yours... that delinquent you call your little brother...”_ A bird on the attic’s only windowsill, high up above them. _“_ _I’ll ship your ratty sister_ _off_ _to reform school..._ _s_ _he’ll_ _come back despising your family...”_ A pair of winter coats folded over the back of a chair, lined with fur that looked real. _“_ _...she’ll be so_ grateful _..._ _your pretty, dainty sister...”_

“ _And as for_ you _—”_ If he’d been that bird on the windowsill, he could’ve flown away. _“If you tell anyone...”_ He could’ve escaped to his parents. _“He’ll keep his mouth good and shut...”_ He could’ve flown _at_ the Lannisters, scratched their skin bloody with his talons. _“_ _W_ _on’t he?”_

The broken record played, and Bran didn’t notice the bird that slipped from the shadows, creeping towards the prayer wheel in his hands.

* * *

Sansa’s alarm woke her at five in the morning.

For a minute, with her mind all foggy and that shrill beeping blistering her ears, she didn’t remember why she’d set it so early. She didn’t remember setting it at all.

“No,” she mumbled into her pillow. “Ghost. Ice it.”

Ghost did not ice it. Ghost did not even respond. It was very possible that Ghost was not actually present.

She cracked one eye open. Ah. Her alarm clock, not a supervillain with an obnoxious noisemaker.

“ _M_ _mmph_ ,” she protested. At least she could destroy a villainous noisemaker. She’d had the alarm clock so long it would feel like murdering the family turtle.

With a sigh, she rubbed at her eyes to rid them of sleep glue before opening them fully. _Five in the morning... What was I thinking?_

And then she remembered.

 _I’m not at home. This is Winterfell._ Winterfell, the Stark’s little cabin on the outskirts of Westeros, surrounded by the northernmost woods. The very woods that often featured in her dreams lately.

_That’s right... I suggested to Mom and Dad that with everything going on, we could all really use a break from the inner city, and since there was a long weekend coming up..._

They’d bought it hook, line and sinker, of course. After all, it hadn’t entirely been a ploy to get here so she could investigate the woods; they really did all need a break, especially Bran and Rickon, who were still heckled by their classmates for details on what it was like to be kidnapped by a supervillain.

She’d been to the Heart Tree earlier with her father and the others—the first time she’d ever expressed an interest in going—but nothing had _happened_. A manual hadn’t fallen out of the tree with all the answers she needed and then some. The wolf from her dreams hadn’t appeared to show her the way to some mystical haven for superheroes, where older and more experienced heroes explained things to the newbies.

Nothing had happened. Nothing was different, and when she left the clearing, she wasn’t any different, either.

Still the same old Sansa. The one who loved lemon cakes and practiced her flute endlessly. The one who thrived on making people like her and shrank back from disapproval. The one who moonlighted as a superhero. The one who’d promised the people of Westeros that she and Ghost would figure out how and why people were being possessed.

The one completely in over her head.

 _We don’t have forever to figure this all out. People are getting restless, and_ _according to Mom and Dad,_ _they’re already putting pressure on the mayor to do something about the attacks. But he can’t. Ghost and I are the only ones who can, which means it’s only a matter of time before the mayor starts putting pressure on_ us _..._

Sansa already knew the very first thing he’d demand: their identities.

She was surprised Cersei hadn’t already raised a stink over that, but she knew that someday soon, _somebody_ would. And the next thing she and Ghost knew, the whole of Westeros would be calling for their real names, wanting to know where they lived and where they went to school. Who their families were.

_My family has been through enough already._

So she and Ghost needed to give people _something_ , to buy themselves time, and then... She didn’t know. For now, all she knew for sure was that she needed to search that clearing from top to bottom.

She shrugged on her winter coat and snagged one of the banana nut muffins she’d baked yesterday. Holidays and long weekends were the only time her parents ever slept in, so sneaking out of the cabin was a snap this early in the morning. Her flashlight lit her way as she wandered through the trees, munching on her muffin. It almost embarrassed her to admit it to herself, but she would’ve had a hard time finding the clearing on her own if she hadn’t been there just yesterday. But she had, and so it was a simple matter of retracing her steps from the day before.

Once she reached it, though...then came the not so simple part.

_I don’t even know what I’m looking for._

She circled the edge of the clearing three times, shining the flashlight over the surrounding trees, but nothing about them struck her as strange. Everything looked normal within the circle, too, but she still knelt down beside the pool to get a closer look. She pointed her flashlight at the water and grabbed a fallen branch to swirl the pool, but nothing stirred beneath the surface. This would’ve been so much easier in the daylight hours, but she couldn’t risk someone stumbling upon her. Who knew what they’d think?

Brushing the snow off her jeans, she stood up and walked to the Heart Tree. _Dad’s always said these woods are the only place weirwood trees can survive. Uncle Benjen has been trying to grow one on his farm for years, but it always withers... I’ve never thought about how strange that is before. Maybe we have some kind of magic fertilizer in the soil here or something._

The thought of digging through the dirt wasn’t exactly an appealing one, so she decided to try climbing the tree first. Maybe she’d find her answers somewhere within the branches. 

Somehow, she couldn’t bring herself to climb all the way to the top. _This would be_ _a_ breeze _as Lady. The Cliff Hanger was at least three times the size of this thing, and I had no trouble climbing it._ _Though_ _Bran must’ve climbed the weirwood trees out here a hundred times, and_ he’s _never needed a super suit._

Then again, Bran hadn’t climbed since the Kingslayer.

She gave up, carefully lowering herself back to the ground. Maybe one day she’d figure out how to transform at will, and then she’d never have problems climbing again.  _Unless I need to climb up there to figure it out. Then I’ll be stuck not knowing forever._

She supposed she could bring Ghost here and make him do it. As whoever he was without the mask on. _I wonder what color his eyes_ really _are... It must be the magic that turns them red._ But no, Ghost’s identity was one mystery she had to leave alone. If she went down that road it would come back to bite her one way or another, she was sure. Besides, she had plenty of other mysteries to obsess over without adding that one to the list.

There was no avoiding it. She crouched down at the roots of the Heart Tree, brushing away the snow with her bare fingers and wishing she’d brought gloves _._ She examined the roots carefully with the help of her flashlight, hoping to see some sort of wolf symbol. Like the tattoo on her wrist.

Sansa heard a sudden, loud _snap!_ behind her. She immediately whipped around, shining the beam of her flashlight towards the sound, her heart in her throat. Not a second later she found herself regretting that instinctive move. _If_ _they didn’t know_ _I was here_ _before, they definitely do now!_

Footsteps coming towards her. She turned off her flashlight even as she tried to reassure herself, _It’s probably just Dad coming to pray, or Arya sneaking out for an adventure. Who else comes all the way out here but our family?_ At least she didn’t have to worry about it being a supervillain. If someone had been possessed, she would’ve felt that increasingly familiar burn in her wrist by now.

It should’ve been pitch-black with her light switched off, but it wasn’t. Whoever it was had brought a light of their own, and as they drew closer the glow invaded her safe cocoon of darkness, revealing a silhouette and then—

“ _Jon_?” Sansa burst out.

“Sansa?”

She could’ve killed him. “What the hell are you doing, skulking around like that? You almost sca—startled me to death!”

“What the hell are _you_ doing, out in the woods alone before the sun’s even come up?” countered Jon.

_Searching for magic symbols or a talking woodland creature that will explain why I gain superpowers every time someone gets possessed by a bird infected with evil._

“...I’m out for a walk,” she sniffed, lifting her chin haughtily and _daring_ him to question her further.

“Well, so am I.”

She dropped her gaze to avoid the skeptic look he was giving her, glancing over the phone in his hands. ( _That’s right,_ she realized absently, _I took the only flashlight._ ) Then she noticed what he was holding in his other hand.

“You stole one of my muffins!” she accused him.

He had the grace to look embarrassed—but not to apologize, apparently. “I didn’t see your name on it.”

“I _explicitly_ told you you couldn’t have any!”

“And I _explicitly_ don’t care.” To prove it, he held the muffin up and took a huge bite out of it. “ _Mmmm_. Delicious. And here I thought you were only good at your flute and using the right eating utensils at fancy dinner parties.”

 _He thinks my playing is good?_ She shook off that random thought and retorted, “And here _I_ thought _you_ were only good at being a nuisance!”

The only specific incident she had in mind was the one happening at that very moment, but Jon immediately jumped to conclusions.

“Your parents invited me,” he reminded her coldly. “So you can tell yourself I’m some charity case tagging along _just_ to ruin your weekend, but that doesn’t change the fact that everyone else wants me here besides you!”

It was true Sansa hadn’t wanted him to come along, but it was also true that she didn’t think of Jon as a charity case—it would’ve taken her massive amounts of wilful ignorance to _not_ see how much the rest of her family loved Jon.

 _Arya and Bran and Rickon practically worship the ground he walks on,_ she thought. A sour feeling twisted in her gut, and she told herself it wasn’t anything like bitterness or jealousy.

Instead of saying any of that out loud, she turned on her heel and walked away, calling back over her shoulder, “Don’t eat any more of my muffins!”

 _Great,_ she thought to herself as she stomped back to the cabin. _Now I’ll have to come back again tomorrow morning!_

Was there any point, though? Even if there _was_ something buried near the roots of the tree, she wouldn’t be able to get at it in the middle of February. _Arya had a hamster once that died in the middle of winter... We had to stick it in the freezer until we could bury it in the spring. I refused to eat anything that came out of that freezer for months._

But she couldn’t wait until the ground thawed. She was running out of time, and there might not even be anything there to begin with. She’d just have to hope her dreams tonight gave her a clearer understanding of what she had to do, what she had to look for. Maybe the wolf would show her she needed to come back on the night of the full moon and howl three times, or something.

She took one hand out of her warm, comfy coat pocket to rub at her forehead tiredly, freezing halfway through the movement.

Her wrist stung.

* * *

It was the easiest transformation Jon had undergone yet. Alone in the woods, under the cover of darkness, there was no chance of anyone finding him and no need to hold off the change. Unless Sansa came back to complain some more about the muffin he’d taken, but he didn’t see why she would. She liked to have the last word.

_And her hands must’ve been freezing! What was she thinking, coming out here without gloves? This far north, in the middle of February, before the sun’s even up! I almost did her a favor, losing my temper like that. She probably would’ve stayed out even longer to argue with me if I hadn’t._

That was a lie. He hadn’t done her any favors; all he’d done was put words in her mouth that she hadn’t actually said. She might very well think them, but she’d never once _said_ them to him. _Granted, she_ did _say I was a nuisance, but I insulted her first..._ And _she childishly denied me baked goods, but then I scared her_ _half_ _to death in the woods, so I guess we’re about even._

Ghost pushed the subject from his mind. Right now, he had to find whoever had been possessed and stop them from wreaking havoc. Which might turn out to be an incredibly difficult task, he suddenly realized, because he was about as far north as you could go without actually _leaving_ Westeros, and who knew where the latest supervillain was?

_If they’re in the inner city, I’ll have to wait ‘til we drive back tomorrow night. Lady might have to go it alone on this one._

A horrible swell of guilt rose up inside him. He hadn’t even _thought_ about what it might mean for Lady if he left the inner city—what it might mean for Westeros itself. _I was so focused on following the dreams I’ve been having... I thought I might learn something here that would help Lady and I. That would help us protect people._

Instead he’d left her alone.

He was so lost in awful thoughts of what could happen to Lady that he didn’t notice the ravens gathering until he was surrounded. Another thing he hadn’t even considered—what it would mean for _him_ to face a supervillain all the way out here, without Lady around to have his back.

 _Seems_ I’m _the one who has to go it alone._ Maybe the thought should’ve brought on a spike of fear, but all he felt was relief. _I didn’t let her down. I might’ve been thoughtless with her safety, with the safety of everyone in Westeros, but I’m the only one who has to pay for it._

Only that wasn’t true, was it? The Starks were in danger, too, so isolated up here at Winterfell. He eyed the blood dripping from the ravens’s talons in horror. _What if they ran into Sansa on their way here?_

_And if it’s just us at Winterfell...then who’s been possessed?_

“Hello, Ghost.”

Oddly, what disturbed him most was that Bran’s voice _hadn’t_ changed. It wasn’t any deeper, any darker. It was the exact same prepubescent voice he was used to hearing from him.

“Bran Stark.” Ghost fought to keep his expression under control as he took in the cloak of raven’s feathers around Bran’s shoulders.

 _What_ happened _to you_ _?_ he wanted to ask. _What happened,_ _Bran_ _?_

“I’m the Three-Eyed Raven now,” said Bran. “I don’t want to fall anymore. I want to _fly_.”

The Three-Eyed Raven jumped from the branches of the Heart Tree, spreading his cloak out with both arms as if they were wings. Ghost tensed, ready to lunge forward and catch him, but Bran only fell for a moment.

And then he flew.

* * *

The Three-Eyed Raven soared through the air, exhilarated, his ravens following in his wake. The wind rushing through his hair, in his face, beneath his cloak... He could stay like this forever and never tire of it.

“ **Careful, now,”** a voice spoke up inside his mind. **“Remember our deal. Defeat the heroes, and then you may fly all you wish, never to touch the earth again.”**

 _Yes, Mockingbird, I remember,_ the Three-Eyed Raven thought back dutifully. He had to focus the thought at the voice still echoing in his head—he’d found Mockingbird couldn’t pick up on what he was thinking otherwise.

He could see, though. He could see all the Three-Eyed Raven saw, as long as he was watching.

The Three-Eyed Raven considered Ghost carefully. _What about Lady?_ he directed the question at Mockingbird. _She’s not here._

“ **She will show herself eventually, I am sure. And if she does not, you will find her wherever she is. Deal with the boy first, before the girl can come to his aid. They will both be weaker alone.”**

That settled it, then.

“Perhaps _you_ would like to fly, Ghost.” The Three-Eyed Raven smiled at his opponent, who flinched back as if he’d been struck.

“What about your family?” asked Ghost, his voice hoarse with emotion. “They can’t fly. Don’t you want to be with them?”

Funny. He’d expected fear, but Ghost only sounded pained.

“I will teach them, and we will all fly together. Mother and Father, Arya and Rickon and Sansa and Jon, and Robb when he comes home from school!” Bran said eagerly. “And Meera and Jojen—”

“ **Remember the deal!”** The words reverberated in his mind, bringing with them an intense ache that had the Three-Eyed Raven closing his eyes for a brief moment, trying to ward it off.

 _Yes, Mockingbird, I remember,_ he replied. _I will not fail you._

The pain eased. **“See that you don’t.”**

He flew over Ghost’s head, lighting on the branch of a weirwood tree at the edge of the clearing.

“Ravens!” he called out, and they attacked without further instruction.

 _Of course, I will need more than that to finish him off,_ he mused—to himself, not Mockingbird. _Even though he is wanted alive. I will need to restrain him before I can bring him to Mockingbird, and then I must find Lady. And then I will teach my family to fly, and no one will ever hurt us again, not lions or krakens or—_

“ **Pay attention, you fool!”**

All at once, the Three-Eyed Raven noticed the branches snaking around his waist, his arms, binding him to the trunk of the weirwood tree.

He watched as Lady dropped from a tree on the opposite end of the clearing, snatching up a branch on the ground and diving into the swarm of birds surrounding her partner. The ravens soon retreated, with the exception of those that had been frozen solid by Ghost’s magic.

 _Ice,_ the Three-Eyed Raven thought. _The snow and the darkness and the creatures of legend. Winter..._

 _Summer!_ Bran gasped, and the ache returned ten-fold.

“ **No! Don’t you remember?”**

A series of images—memories?—in his mind’s eye. The fall. Bedridden, crippled, his family scattered. The burned husk of his once proud home. Seeing his father and mother and brothers in his visions, all slaughtered one by one. Seeing his sisters, bruised and battered by cruel hands and harsh tongues, by a world that wanted to hollow them out and fill them with nothing but pain and anger and hopelessness.

Other things, too, things he wasn’t sure Mockingbird intended him to see. His mother brushing his bangs back, dropping a kiss on his forehead. His father’s arm around his shoulders, pulling him close, sheltering him. Sitting in the training yard, watching Robb and Jon exchange barbs as well as blows, flushing with excitement when they called him over and handed him a practise sword of his own. Clinging to the stone walls of his home, high above the ground, laughter bursting from his mouth as Sansa chased Arya through the snow down below. And Rickon. Rickon forever crawling after him, wanting to do everything he did, wanting to be just like him.

But clearer than anything was the wolf pup that looked up at him with curious eyes, waiting for something. Waiting for a name.

A voice, neither Mockingbird’s nor his own: _“It is beautiful beneath the sea, but if you stay too long, you’ll drown.”_

He felt a rush of fear overtake him, driving the images away. _I don’t want to drown! I don’t want to remember!_ _I want to_ fly _! I want to be free, I want to be safe and happy!_

“ **And you _will_ be, if you just do as I ordered—”**

The Three-Eyed Raven forced his eyes open, remembering the sweet melody that he’d heard just before the branches had bound him to the weirwood. The sweet melody that had wormed its way into his head, making him see and hear and feel things that weren’t there. That weren’t real.

“ **That’s right. You’re not Brandon Stark anymore. You’re the Three-Eyed Raven.”**

The branches loosened their grip before vanishing entirely, and he knocked back the person reaching for the prayer wheel attached to the inside of his cloak by looped threads.

“Rav—” he started to call for help, but before he could finish Ghost’s blade suddenly stabbed through his cloak deep into the bark of the tree, pinning him to it. He could see Ghost on the ground, shooting his ravens down with ice, while Lady climbed back to her perch and reached for the prayer wheel again.

“Ravens!” He tried to knock her back again, but this time she was holding tight to handle of the sword, anchoring herself.

She tore the prayer wheel from the fabric of his cloak, and the last thing the Three-Eyed Raven heard was Mockingbird raging in his mind.

* * *

Jon took the mug of hot chocolate Ned offered him and, for the first time in a long time, voluntarily went to sit beside Sansa. She was curled up in a cocoon of blankets on the couch by the fireplace, warming her hands with her mug. She eyed Jon warily when he sank down onto the cushion beside her but didn’t protest.

 _Do it. Like ripping off a band-aid._ “I shouldn’t have accused you like that. I’m sorry. It was...rude.” To say the least.

“And I shouldn’t have eaten your muffin,” he tacked on generously when she failed to respond.

That made her laugh. “I notice you didn’t throw in an apology for that one.”

He shrugged. “I’m not sorry. They were delicious, and it was... _rude_ of you to say everyone else could have some but me.”

She sipped at her hot chocolate for a second before admitting, “Yeah, I guess it was. Sorry.”

Right, that was enough for one day. He would’ve gotten up and walked away right then, but something in him felt responsible for her having been stranded out in the cold during the attack, unable to run for Winterfell lest the ravens spot her.

“How are you feeling?” he felt compelled to ask. _And anyways, even if it wasn’t my fault... It’s not like I_ hate _her. I’d certainly never want her to freeze to death._ “Warm, yet?”

“Warm- _er_.” She gave him a suspicious once over and then called out, “Dad, what did you spike these drinks with? Jon is being _nice_ to me!”

Ned only chuckled in response, and Jon felt a wave of embarrassment heat up his face. “Don’t be ridiculous! I haven’t even had any yet!”

“Huh. Maybe we should swaddle _you_ in blankets. I think your time hiding out in that tree has made you delirious. Or maybe you hit your head on the way down?”

“ _I_ don’t need blankets. I wore my gloves because I didn’t want to catch hypothermia.”

“Are you implying that I’m stupid?” asked Sansa, and he could almost _hear_ her tenuous control over her temper fraying.

“No, but I’m not implying that you’re smart.” Even though she was. Very smart, even. To the point where he couldn’t even attempt to deny it to himself, which was honestly so _irritating_.

“I’m smarter than you!”

“Then why did you forget your gloves?”

“Because I—” Sansa began, but then Arya threw a scrunched up piece of paper-towel at her head.

“Bran is _sleeping_ , you blockheads!” she hissed. “Keep it down!”

Jon and Sansa locked eyes for a moment before coming to a silent but mutual agreement to ignore each other as they drank their hot chocolates. With nothing else to do, Jon found himself staring into the fire, his mind wandering.

 _It’s a good thing Lady showed up...but what was she_ doing _out there? How did she get there?_ He hadn’t dared ask her, for fear that would prompt her to ask the same of him.

 _There are other cabins up here. The Giantsbanes, the Thenns, the Reeds, the Mormonts, the Manderlys, a few more I can’t remember..._ Though you’d have to drive for a good half hour to reach any of those cabins from Winterfell, the one farthest north. He supposed Lady must’ve already been hanging around here, to have gotten to the Three-Eyed Raven so quickly...

 _Maybe she was hunting,_ he thought with a smile, though that didn’t seem quite... _Lady_ -like to him. _Maybe she was just out for a nice, really long walk._

Of the cabins out here, he knew at least a couple had been occupied this weekend. _Ygritte and her family, and the Thenns, too... Ygritte was complaining about them, and Alys Karstark said her boyfriend Sigorn_ _Thenn_ _invited her along..._ _The Reeds are here, too, of course._ _I don’t know about the others, though. I suppose I could ask Ned, he’d know._

Or... He could just leave it alone. Respect Lady’s privacy, respect her identity. Respect _her_ , period.

He wondered if she’d do the same thing for him. But in the end, it didn’t matter. Now that he’d thought of it that way, as a matter of _respect_ , he found he couldn’t go any further regardless of what Lady chose to do.

_Somehow, though, I have this funny feeling she wouldn’t do that to me, anymore than I would to her._

The flames flickered, sparked, and he realized that funny feeling might just be trust.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought this chapter would turn out longer, cause it’s the end of Bran’s mini-arc (he’s still gonna have a POV every couple chapters though) but oh well. At least it gave a little insight into Mockingbird, plus next chapter is literally twice the length of this one.


	6. Little Soldier

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no excuse for why it's been like ten million years since I last updated except that I had writer's block.
> 
> Anyways, thank you so much to the people who commented last chapter! I smile every time I open my inbox and see the messages there. 
> 
> And thanks so, so much to all of you for reading!

Sansa turned the book in her hands upside down and shook it as if hoping the letters printed inside would dislodge from their places and rearrange themselves into words she could actually understand. She’d snuck out again last night, suspecting that with what had happened to Bran they might be going home early, and found this book just _lying_ there at the roots of the tree. _Someone must have put it there. Someone wanted me to find it._

She knew it was meant for her because there were pictures. The text was written in a language unknown to her, but the _pictures_ —of the running grey wolf, the red dragon with three heads, the golden kraken, and so many more—those were easy enough to understand.

There were two pictures in particular that caught her attention and held it. The first was a sky-blue falcon, and the second was a silver mockingbird. Neither bird looked quite like the ones that had been possessing people, but they certainly seemed a better place to start then, say, the entry with the two swans that she’d almost missed because it didn’t even have a full page to itself.

Granted, the mockingbird’s entry wasn’t much longer than that, especially in comparison to the falcon’s three double-sided pages.  _And the running wolf’s,_ she thought with a strange, almost primal sense of satisfaction. _The wolf has the longest entry of any of them._

If only one of the birds was purple, like that eerie mist that came out whenever she or Ghost ripped a supervillain’s power source from them. That would’ve left her with little doubt over which entry she needed to be looking at. She’d tried searching for purple images—not all the entries began with the picture of an animal; she’d also seen a sun, a rose, even a pair of keys—but all she’d found on that front was a sinister-looking unicorn.

 _Maybe a unicorn is infecting the birds with evil?_ she considered halfheartedly. _Or maybe the shapes and colors of the images don’t mean a damn thing, and any one of these entries could hold the information we need on our enemy!_

She felt like throwing the book at the wall in frustration. What she really needed was a way to read these entries—every last one of them, if it came to that—and she had no idea how she was going to find it. _I don’t even know what language this is!_ _Why didn’t the person who left me this book leave me some way to translate it? What’s the point if I can’t read a damn word? How am I supposed to figure out who it was? Why did they it? Whether or not I can trust them?_

Someone knocked on the door, which at least indicated that it wasn’t Arya. Winterfell was too small for everyone to have their own rooms, so she and Arya had made up a set of rules years ago for each of them to follow so that that family holidays wouldn’t ever be cut short by one of them murdering the other. Sansa had suggested that they both knock before entering if the door was closed, but Arya had stubbornly insisted that she wasn’t going to ask permission to enter her own bedroom. Sansa had let it go in order to focus on a higher prize: more drawer space.

“Sansa?” her mother called through the door. “Can I come in?”

Sansa shoved the book underneath her pillow. “Sure!”

Cat opened the door and slipped inside, her eyebrows rising high on her forehead when she noticed the packed suitcase on her daughter’s bed.

“You should’ve at least come down to breakfast. That could’ve waited until evening.”

Sansa had done her packing in bursts, using it as a way to clear her head whenever she found herself fed up with her failed attempts to puzzle out something useful from the book, and had honestly forgotten about breakfast entirely. Now that her mother had mentioned it, though, she instantly became aware of a gnawing hunger in her stomach.

“I thought we were leaving this morning!” she said in genuine surprise. “After everything that happened yesterday...”

“Your father and I _had_ planned to leave as soon as Bran was feeling up to it,” acknowledged Cat, and the way her mouth twitched told Sansa she still thought that plan was best. “But we were supposed to drive down to see the Reeds yesterday, and Bran was adamant that we go today instead.”

“Oh. Well, if it will cheer him up...” _Then it’s worth it. Even if I have to slog through the woods and crouch down in the snow for ages while the others kill adorable woodland creatures._

Catelyn held up a hand to stop Sansa before she could unpack her scarf. “Rickon is still very unsettled by what happened to Bran yesterday, and he wants to stay here. When I said I’d stay with him, he accused me of treating him like a baby—”

Sansa caught on right away. “I’ll look after him,” she said, not even bothering to hide the relief in her voice. She liked the Reeds a lot, but hunting was just... _really_ not her thing.

“Thank you, Sansa.” Cat smiled. “Now, really, come down and have breakfast.”

“She thinks she’s too good to eat with the likes of us, I guess!” came Arya’s voice from the hallway just before she appeared in the door. “She was packing like a maniac when I woke up. It’s like she can’t wait to get away from me!”

Arya had a smirk on her face, so Sansa didn’t even bother contradicting her. “You snore.”

“ _You_ snore,” she countered. “And you tossed and turned for ages last night! Dreaming about your future wedding with some unlucky bastard you tricked into putting up with you?”

“Language, Arya!” their mother reprimanded as Sansa grabbed her pillow and threw it at Arya. She dodged it with ease and darted away, laughing.

Cat spoke up again before Sansa could shout an insult after her sister. “What’s that you have there?”

She looked to where her mother was pointing. “Oh, that?” she asked, fighting to keep her voice even, wishing she hadn’t thrown that pillow. “Just a book Margaery lent me for the ride to Winterfell. I didn’t get around to it until last night, though.”

“And you slept with it under your pillow?”

“No, I just...” Her mother clearly thought it was some racy romance novel disguised as an innocuous fantasy book. “It just found its way under there while I was packing.”

“Did it, now?”

 _Should I...? Yes,_ she decided. _Mom won’t understand it anymore than I do._ “I haven’t actually been reading it, really, just looking at the pictures. It’s in a language I’ve never seen before.” Sansa handed the book to her mother, who eyed her suspiciously as if she’d expected she’d have to pry the thing from Sansa’s cold, dead hands.

Cat examined the faded old cover and then flipped through the pages carefully. Her brow furrowed. “What was Margaery doing with this?” she asked. “This is written in the Common Tongue.”

Sansa looked at her in dismay. “But the Common Tongue is a dead language, isn’t it?” One unique to Westeros, which made it even harder to learn. Westeros had a multitude of unique religions and dead languages that the rest of the world didn’t care about.

“Yes, it is,” said Cat, handing the book back to her. “They only teach it at the Citadel—only scholars have any use for it nowadays.” She watched Sansa’s face fall. “However, they _used_ to have a course you could take on it in high school, which they eventually got rid of because so few students were signing up for it. Your father happened to be one of those students.”

Sansa perked up so fast it almost made her dizzy. “You mean he can read this!”

“He had a semester’s worth of instruction decades ago. I doubt he could read a grocery list written in the Common Tongue, let alone an entire book.” Before Sansa’s excitement could deflate completely, Catelyn added, “But I know he has an old textbook lying around somewhere at home, and a dictionary. If you really want to read this book—”

“I do!”

“—then I’ll find them for you when we get home,” she finished, ignoring the interruption.

Sansa almost hugged her. “Thanks, Mom, you’re a life-saver!”

“Yes, yes. Now go and eat, for heaven’s sake!”

* * *

Jon got back from his second search of the clearing to find Arya, Bran and Ned loading up the car.

“Jon!” Arya called out, abandoning her task and bounding over to him. “Where’ve you been? We were just about to go looking for you!”

“Out for a walk. Wanted to clear my head,” he answered vaguely, conscious of the stone carving digging into his side beneath his coat. So he changed the subject. “What’s all this? I thought we weren’t leaving ‘til tonight.”

“We are. Mom and Dad wanted to leave this morning, but they changed their minds. We’re going hunting with the Reeds instead,” she said. “You know we always have more luck with game down there.”

“Oh. Is that really a good idea? After yesterday...” he trailed off, eyes drifting to where Bran stood talking excitedly with his father.

Arya followed his gaze. “He wanted to,” she said simply. “He was so quiet this morning until Mr. Reed called to invite us out today. He hasn’t stopped going on about it, he really wants to see Jojen and Meera.”

That settled that; Jon was on board with anything that cheered Bran up.

Catelyn, Sansa and Rickon came out of the cabin then, and Bran rushed over to them. Ned went to Jon and Arya instead. “That trunk’s not going to load itself,” he told his daughter sternly, but his smile ruined the effect.

Arya gave an exaggerated sigh. “Fine, Dad.”

He waited until she’d made a show of stomping away before turning to Jon. “Looking forward to the hunt?”

“Yeah, of course,” said Jon, though what he really wanted to do was head back inside and examine his find. “Should be fun.”

“Hmm.” Ned studied him closely, gauging the sincerity of his response. “Rickon doesn’t want to come, you know. Cat _was_ planning to stay here with him, but she really wants to see Jyana...”

“I’ll stay with him instead!” Jon instantly agreed to the unspoken request. He’d probably spend most of the day playing with Rickon, but he was sure he’d get at least ten or fifteen minutes to himself at some point. Plenty of time to look over that carving.

Ned smiled, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “Thank you, Jon.”

Rickon ran up to him soon afterwards, listing all the board games he wanted to play so quickly the words blended together in Jon’s ears.

“Okay, hold on, back up!” Jon held up his hands. “What was that first one?”

“Monopoly!”

He had to bite back a groan at that. Monopoly was _so long_ , and, he had found, incredibly boring with only two people.

“How about we start off with Life instead?” he bargained.

“Okay, I’ll go get it now!” Rickon darted inside.

The others left not long after and Jon headed inside. He hung up his coat and hid the stone carving—a stone carving of a _bird_ , which was why he’d found it suspicious enough to take back with him—in his room. Then he went back downstairs, shouting over the racket Rickon was making, “Alright, Rickon, let’s—”

“What are you still doing here?” a voice that could not _possibly_ be Sansa’s interrupted from the kitchen.

Jon rounded the corner and stared at Sansa in disbelief. “What are _you_ still doing here?”

“I asked first!”

“Fine, I’m looking after Rickon!”

“No, _I’m_ looking after Rickon!”

“Jon, Sansa, I got it!” Rickon came barging in, holding the Game of Life in his hands. He lifted the box in the air and shook it, grinning. “I’ll set it up in the living room, okay?”

“Sounds good,” said Sansa, managing to keep her voice even. As soon as Rickon was gone, she hissed, “Mom asked me to stay with him because everyone else would be at the Reed’s!”

“Your dad asked _me_ to stay with him because everyone else would be at the Reed’s,” Jon replied through gritted teeth.

 _A genuine mix-up, or an accidentally on purpose mix-up?_ But Ned wouldn’t go along with something like that, would he? And why would Cat even _want_ them to look after Rickon together? Presumably she’d rather have the cabin in one piece when she got back.

For a long moment Jon and Sansa just stood there, glaring daggers at each other. He almost expected her to demand he _walk_ to the Reed’s and leave her in peace, and he had half a mind to stomp back up to his room before she could.

“What color cars do you guys want? I call green!” yelled Rickon from the living room, putting an end to their staring contest.

Sansa sighed in what was very clearly defeat. “Red!”

“Yellow!” Jon answered just as reluctantly.

They trudged into the living room, deliberately not looking at each other, to find the board set up on the coffee table. Rickon sat on a bean bag chair, and he pointed to the couch opposite him.

“Sit down,” he instructed them, and so they did.

After a while he looked up from the cards he was sorting and saw that they’d chosen seats on opposite ends of the couch. “Move closer!” he said, gesturing impatiently. “You’re too far from the board!”

Sansa slid about three inches closer. Jon moved even less than that, as if it were some sort of competition. Rickon just rolled his eyes and muttered to himself under his breath. He handed them their starting money and asked if they wanted to start their career right away or go to college first instead.

“Career, obviously,” said Jon, at the exact same time Sansa replied, “College, of course.”

They eyed each other with disdain but said nothing. Rickon ignored the dirty looks and set their cars at the appropriate starting points. He placed his own beside Sansa’s and gave himself and Sansa bank loans.

Then he fanned out the career cards and made Jon pick one.

“Accountant,” Jon revealed, and Rickon snatched the card back from him. “Hey!”

“You need a degree for that,” said Sansa in that holier-than-thou tone of hers that drove Jon up the wall.

Rickon looked through the cards carefully and removed two more. “Pick another!”

 _It make_ _s_ _no difference anyways,_ he thought to himself. From what he remembered of this game, you could still get the highest salary even if you hadn’t gone to college. He didn’t end up drawing the highest salary card, but at least he didn’t get the lowest, either. _Fifty_ _thousand is pretty good, right? The lowest is like_ _ten_ _or_ _twenty_ _,_ _isn’t it_ _?_

As Rickon took his first turn, Jon noticed something odd about his car.

“You’re missing the little person!” He looked at Sansa’s car. “And so are you!”

“No, we’re not,” Rickon said, exchanging a significant look with his sister. “We’re ghosts.”

“ _What_?”

“It’s so we don’t have to keep putting the little people back in the car if it gets knocked over!” Rickon explained, obviously proud of their bizarre solution.

“There’s no advantage to us,” added Sansa. “But you can take out your person, too, if you like.”

Jon eyed the sweet smile she sent him with distrust. “No thanks, I’m good.”

Sansa got to the job search space after only two turns, and when Rickon held out the cards to her she took three and chose between them.

“Hey, I only got to pick one!” Jon protested.

She just shrugged in response as she set the Accountant card that should’ve been Jon’s down in front of her. “That’s what happens when you don’t go to college in this game. It’s in the rules.”

The rules had gone missing years ago and Rickon insisted she was telling the truth, so Jon was left with no choice but to believe her. However, he quickly realized that the other two had played this game together _a lot_ , and they had an abundance of their own little rules and habits. 

Not only were they ghosts, they also married other ghosts and eventually had ghost kids. (How that worked, Jon had no idea. Maybe they’d adopted?) They made up stories for their little ghost families and made choices based on what the people in those stories would do.

“Fred doesn’t need that,” Rickon stubbornly insisted when Jon suggested he buy car insurance. “Everything just goes right through him anyways.”

“Lily always wanted to live in a mansion, and Jordan’s had terrible impulse control ever since she came back as a ghost,” Sansa explained as she forked over the cash for the most expensive property in the game.

( _Not like she can’t afford it,_ Jon thought sourly. Of the three salary cards she’d drawn, one had happened to be the highest available.)

It turned out they did need the little people, because Sansa eventually had to pay for all of her kids to go to college. “Here,” she said, handing Jon one of her many a hundred thousands.

“Give me another fifty thousand, you have three kids!”

“I have two kids,” she said.

Rickon backed her up. “She has two kids!”

Having no way to disprove them, Jon just grumbled under his breath and shoved the money into the bank.

Somehow, Jon landed on nearly every _Taxes Due!_ space on the board and had to suffer Sansa’s preening each time, while Sansa and Rickon only landed on one of his job spaces each. Jon lost his stock card immediately after buying it while Sansa got an extra for free, and Rickon collected so many life tiles his little tower fell over.

Jon reached the end of the game first (due to the abundance of tens he’d spun, all of which Police Officer Rickon had noticed and demanded Jon pay for), and out of sheer stubbornness retired to Millionaire Estates. Sansa stole three of his life tiles before finally retiring, and on his second to last turn Rickon collected a ridiculous pension four times the amount of Jon’s salary.

He sat there, seething, as Sansa and Rickon took their sweet time counting their piles and piles of money.

“We tied for first!” Sansa finally concluded.

“That makes you second, right, Jon?” asked Rickon in an obvious attempt to make Jon feel better.

 _He’s a sweet kid,_ Jon reminded himself darkly. _It’s not_ his _fault his big sister is the devil incarnate._

“We’re playing Guess Who next,” was all he said in answer. He’d played that game with his mother all the time as a kid, and he’d won most of the time, even after Lyanna had stopped letting him ask two questions per turn.

Sansa frowned at him. “That’s for two people only, though.”

“I know. You and Rickon can be a team.”

Rickon and Sansa glanced at each other in surprise but soon agreed.

Everything was normal at first. Jon won the first two rounds, Sansa and Rickon won the next, and then Jon won another. On the fifth round, though, Sansa stopped asking the normal questions about shirt colors and facial hair and accessories, and Rickon followed her lead.

“Does your person look like they won the lottery?” asked Sansa.

“What kind of question is that?” She just stared at him expectantly, so he squinted down at his person before finally guessing, “...No?”

On their next turn Rickon asked the question. “Are your person’s shoulders swoopy?”

“ _Swoopy_?” Jon repeated.

“Like bat wings!”

“I...don’t...think so?”

Rickon nodded very seriously as he flicked eight people down, then folded his hands and waited for Jon to ask his question.

“Is your person wearing glasses?”

“No. Does your person look like a sore loser?” Sansa asked.

Jon glared at her. “How am I supposed to know what that even looks like?”

“Try looking in the mirror,” she suggested, and Rickon high-fived her.

 _Alright, that’s it._ Jon grabbed the pillow behind him, watching Sansa’s face as it dawned on her what he was about to do. She dove out of the way just in time and the pillow hit Rickon instead. He launched up from his bean bag chair, grabbing the pillow Jon had thrown and letting out a war cry.

Jon grinned. _Now_ this _game will be fun._

* * *

“So you don’t remember _anything_?” Jojen asked in a hushed voice as they trekked through the snow behind the others.

“No, I remember I had a dream right before and I remember holding the prayer wheel the bird infected, but after that... Nothing, until I woke up in the woods. Lady and Ghost were still there, and I knew right away what must’ve happened.”

Lady had been resting his head on her lap while Ghost knelt down beside them and checked his forehead. They’d made sure he was okay physically, then asked him what he remembered. He’d told them the same thing he was telling Jojen now, and then Ghost had mentioned his transformation was winding down. He’d ruffled Bran’s hair before running off, and Lady had half-carried Bran back to Winterfell, where she’d deposited him in his frantic mother’s arms before slipping away.

As he’d warmed up by the fire, he’d overheard his parents whispering to each other about how Sansa and Jon were still missing. They’d shown up not long after that, Sansa shaking like a leaf while Jon followed behind her, his hands hovering at her back, prepared to catch her at any moment.

 _Sansa could’ve gotten hypothermia because of me, or frostbite,_ he thought to himself miserably, though he’d been too exhausted at the time to realize why Sansa and Jon must’ve been outside so long—they’d been trapped out there by the Three-Eyed Raven. By _Bran_.

“Do you remember what the dream was about?” Jojen asked hesitantly, as if afraid he’d upset Bran.

“I think so. I’ve been having the same dream ever since the Kingslayer, so...” Bran shrugged. Then, when Jojen couldn’t seem to bring himself to ask: “I fall. In the dream, I fall, and Lady’s not there. She doesn’t catch me.”

_But first I find Cersei and Jaime Lannister kissing in an old attic, and then they threaten me and my family if I tell anyone, and Jaime pushes me down and I fall—_

“What are you boys talking about?” Meera asked cheerfully, falling back to walk with them. Out here in the woods, with her bow at her side and her quiver of arrows strapped to her back, her curly hair tied back for once, she looked to Bran like a goddess of the hunt, straight out of mythology.

His heart turned over at the sight of her, but he pushed the feeling down and widened his eyes at Jojen, who seemed to get the hint.

“Dreams,” said Jojen, not even lying. “I was telling Bran about my dream with all those birds swarming the Eyrie.”

 _The Eyrie?_ Bran fought to keep his expression neutral since he was supposed to have heard this already. _That’s the house my Aunt Lysa owns, way up on the mountain on the eastern border of Westeros._

“That’s right, I remember you telling me about that dream.” Meera turned to Bran. “You’ve told him too many stories about that place,” she scolded, giving him a playful wink so he knew not to take her seriously. “Now he’s even dreaming about it!”

“It’s an interesting place!” he defended himself, smiling at her. “I can’t help that he keeps asking me about it.”

She laughed. “I’m afraid if you tell him any more about it, he’ll end up like your cousin Robin, wanting to live there!”

Jojen pretended to think it over. “Maybe if the Moon Door from the old stories still opened.”

“That’s the other thing Robin wanted,” Bran told him. “He showed it to me that one time we all went to visit. It’s just a boring old door, I promise.”

“Only because you can’t open it.”

Bran didn’t have a chance to reply because just then the others came rushing over.

“We’re going back to the cabin," Mr. Reed said, ushering them back the way they'd come.

“What for?” Meera asked in surprise. “We’ve only caught one lousy rabbit so far!”

“There’s a reason for that,” answered Ned, his mouth set in a grim line. “We’ve hardly seen any animals out here, it’s humid, it’s _cold_ , the wind has been picking up since this morning—there’s going to be a blizzard. A big one.”

“But we checked the weather before we drove up here,” Bran protested. “They would’ve issued a warning—”

Arya grabbed him by the shoulders and turned him around. “Less arguing, more walking! It doesn’t matter what the news said, we need to find shelter.”

He picked up the pace. _If Arya’s_ this _determined to head in without getting any good kills first, there_ must _be a blizzard coming! She really wanted to take down something big so she could show it off to Jon—_

Bran halted in his tracks, his hand shooting out to grasp his father’s arm. “Dad, Jon and Rickon and Sansa, they don’t know about the blizzard—” _Neither do Mom and Mrs. Reed, for that matter!_

“I know, son, we’re going to call them as soon as we get in.”

“But what if the phone lines—”

“We’ll get there before the blizzard does,” Ned promised, and Bran prayed to all the Gods he knew that his father was right.

* * *

Sansa ran for cover behind the couch as Rickon flung pillow after pillow at her. _Where is he even getting all these? s_ he wondered, and more importantly: _How could betray me like this,_ _siding with the enemy_ _? My own brother!_

“Good shot, Rickon!” called Jon as he stalked around the couch, closing in on Sansa. She took a step back and he took a step forward. She stepped to the side and he mirrored her. It almost felt like they were dancing, except Jon was a terrible dancer and she would’ve never danced with even if he weren’t. (The many times she’d practically begged him to dance with her when they were kids, even though he continually trod on her toes, _obviously_ did not count. Little Sansa was innocent and naive and had not yet realized Jon Snow was the human embodiment of an annoying pimple you couldn’t get rid of.)

Rickon came running around the couch from behind her, armed now with only the little toy soldier Osha had given him for his fifth birthday, and Sansa took a single moment to consider her next course of action. Instead of trying to muscle her way passed either Rickon or Jon, she spun to face the couch and tried to vault over the back of it. Jon lunged forward and caught her around the waist before she could, hauling her back against his chest, trapping her there.

“Not so fast!” he said, and when she struggled to break free he just laughed in her ear.

Sansa kicked the air uselessly, laughing so hard she could barely breathe. She wasn’t even sure why. Something about the situation just struck her as hysterically funny. Maybe because it was so strange: Jon was _laughing_ , sincerely, _with_ her instead of _at_ her, which was hardly ever the case on the rare occasions he laughed around her.

The landline rang. Jon set her down before releasing her and going to answer it—Sansa was in no shape to talk to anyone, still giggling breathlessly.

“Sansa, now that we’ve got you, we have to put you in prison,” said Rickon sternly, lifting his toy in a way that indicated it was included in ‘we.’ “Stop laughing, prison is no fun!”

“R-Right, right. Of— Of course it’s not.” She managed to reign in her amusement with extreme effort. Drawing herself up to her full height, she glared down at her brother like the giant in Jack and the Bean Stalk had the little boy who'd trespassed on his home. “What am I being thrown in prison for?”

Rickon blinked like he didn’t understand the question. “Just because.”

“Just because? You can’t throw people in prison just because! Maybe I’ll throw both of you in prison _just because_!” She snatched at his toy soldier menacingly, and he backed up in delighted horror.

“Sansa!” Jon called from the kitchen. “Come here for a second!”

“You win this time, but I’ll be back!” She made a threatening I’m-watching-you gesture before flouncing into the kitchen, Rickon’s giggles trailing after her.

“Alright, what’s this about? You’re interrupting my—” She stopped short at the grim look on Jon’s face.

He gestured for her to come closer, and she did, easily dismissing the realization that the incident in the living room was the closest she’d been to him since she was a little girl, begging him for _just one more_ dance.

“That was your father. There’s going to be a blizzard,” he told her in a low tone. “They’ll be stuck there at the Reed’s until it clears up, so it’ll be just us and Rickon until then.”

“A blizzard?” she repeated in disbelief. Surely they would’ve heard about an incoming blizzard at least _one_ of the six times they’d checked the weather before driving up here. Surely she or Jon would’ve noticed a storm gathering outside at some point in the past few hours.

But now that they’d all stopped making so much noise—screams and laughter, thuds when the objects they threw at each other missed and hit the floor or the walls or the ceiling instead, fake monster roars—she realized she could hear the wind raging outside, and when she glanced out the window all she could see was white.

She thought of what her mother had said to her earlier. _“Rickon is still very unsettled by what happened to Bran yesterday.”_

It was the easiest decision she’d ever made. _We can’t let him find out._ “We need to close all the curtains,” she told Jon, already striding towards the kitchen window. “Maybe put on some loud music—”

Jon only swore in response, and when Sansa wheeled around to reprimand him she found him staring at the doorway. She followed his gaze and there was Rickon, clutching his little toy soldier to his chest with both hands, clearly having overheard every word.

Sansa instantly abandoned the curtains, going to her brother and kneeling down in front of him.

“They’re not coming back?” he demanded, before she could even try to reassure him.

She reached for his shoulders and he flinched away. “Of course they’re coming back.”

“They’ll get lost in the blizzard! The snow will bury them—”

Jon spoke up from behind them. “They’ll stay inside until it clears up, and then they’ll come back.”

“What if it never stops?” Rickon glared at them, tears forming in his eyes that he quickly wiped away with his sleeve. “What if the snow buries the whole cabin and no one can dig them out?”

“Blizzards don’t last forever, I promise,” said Jon, but Rickon just shook his head.

“We shouldn’t have come here! Bran got hurt, and you and Sansa got hurt, and now—”

Struck by sudden inspiration, Sansa grasped Rickon’s shoulders again, this time not letting him pull away. “Rickon, look at me. Look at me.” He finally did, and she gentled her hold on his shoulders and asked, “What happened when Bran got hurt?”

“Sansa,” Jon protested, a clear warning in his tone.

She ignored it. “What happened, Rickon?”

“He ran away from the cabin, and there were ravens everywhere... They trapped you and Jon outside.”

“You’re right, but what happened after that?”

“You all came back, and Bran was tired and you guys were freezing.”

“But before that. How did the ravens disappear? Who brought Bran back?”

She could see the understanding dawning on his face. “Lady brought him back. Lady and Ghost stopped the ravens,” he said.

“And... And the Kingslayer, when he—” _No, it’s better not to mention that._ _The memory of_ _clinging to that tower_ _will only scare him more_ _._ “He turned all those people into Gold Cloaks, but Lady and Ghost saved them, right?”

“Yes.” Rickon looked at her with wide eyes. “And they saved Arya when she was wearing her horse mask and the Kraken King went after her. I saw it on her blog.”

“They saved Jon’s friend Sam, too, when he was transformed into Ser Piggy. Right, Jon?” She glanced over her shoulder to find him staring at her intently, a strange look in his eyes that she didn’t care about deciphering.

“ _Right_ , Jon?” she prompted again when he took too long to answer.

He seemed to snap out of it then. “Right,” he said. “They did.”

She turned back to Rickon. “Lady and Ghost save people, Rickon. That’s what heroes do. If the blizzard buries Arya and the others, Lady and Ghost will go dig them out. They’ll bring our family back.”

“What if... What if it buries us? Or the Kingslayer attacks? And Lady and Ghost are so busy digging everyone else out, they can’t help us?”

For the first time, Sansa faltered. “I... We’ll just have to be brave until they can come get us. Like your little soldier here.”

“I’m not little!” Rickon seethed, shrugging her hands off his shoulders again.

“I didn’t say you were.” She stared at him helplessly. He was just a kid and he was frightened. She was the big sister but she didn’t know how to make him feel safe. _I’m supposed to know this. I’m supposed to at least_ pretend _I know what I’m doing._

Jon was at her side without her even noticing his approach, kneeling down to meet Rickon at eye-level. “Lady and Ghost will dig us out. It might take them a while, but we can be brave until then, I know we can. And if the Kingslayer shows up before then, well... Sansa and I will protect you.”

“You and Sansa?” he asked, every inch of him telegraphing his doubt. “How are you going to do that?”

“I brought my fencing sword,” said Jon. He looked at Sansa and seemed to consider her for a moment before turning back to Rickon. “And I guess Sansa could irritate him into running away.”

Sansa couldn’t help herself; it was like a reflex.

“Ouch!” Jon rubbed the spot where she’d pinched him. “Did you see that, Rickon? Look at her! She’s the meanest person I’ve ever met! And she’s scary. I went bowling with her and Robb last summer, and she dropped the ball on my foot!”

“I did not!” she protested. She’d _threatened_ to, certainly, but she hadn’t actually done it. “Besides, you deliberately stole my turn—”

“She _is_ pretty scary,” Rickon admitted to Jon, interrupting her. “I tripped over the cord while she was blow-drying her hair once, and then I heard stomping and I thought it was Godzilla. But it was just Sansa coming to yell at me.”

“Honestly, I can’t see why the Kingslayer would risk attacking us with Sansa here.” Jon nodded at Rickon very seriously and he nodded back, his fear fading away before her disbelieving eyes.

Jon smiled at Sansa as if to say, _See? Mission accomplished._  She eyed him balefully but said nothing. He was right for once, after all. She stood up, about to suggest they play another board game, but then something happened that sent all their hard-won progress down the drain.

The power went out.

* * *

“Rickon, it’s okay, we’ll find a flashlight, we’ll light candles, we’ll—” Jon cut off his frantic attempts to reassure Rickon, noticing for the first time the strange purple light that illuminated the kitchen.

_No. No, not now, not again—_

“ _Rickon_!”

The bird landed on the toy soldier still clutched tightly in Rickon’s hand.

 _It’s too late._ Jon knew that somehow, deep in his gut, even as he lunged forward and joined Sansa in trying to slap the bird away. It disappeared into the toy and they switched to trying to tear the thing out of Rickon’s grip instead.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he noted that the change wasn’t instantaneous; he noted the conflicting emotions passing over Rickon’s face, the way he muttered under his breath as if arguing with someone. Himself? The bird? Or someone else entirely?

Jon didn’t have long to wonder, because all at once Rickon’s face relaxed. His eyes briefly glowed the same purple the bird had before returning to their normal blue. His red curls stayed the same, too, but they were mostly hidden by the tall, plain blue hat that appeared on his head. There was a little band running underneath his chin, attached to the hat on both sides, holding it in place. Jon looked the rest of him over. A plain blue uniform with silver buttons, black pants, blue shoes... He looked exactly like his little toy soldier.

Right down to the gun.

Sansa grasped his arm and _tugged_ , and he followed her out of the kitchen, into the hallway and up the stairs as Rickon declared, loudly enough for them to hear over the roaring wind outside: “I’m the Little Soldier, and I’m coming to get you!”

She pulled him into the bathroom, the only room on the second floor that had a lock, and it finally occurred to Jon to yank his arm from her grip.

“A locked door isn’t going to stop him! He’s got a _gun_ , and there’s nowhere to hide in here!”

She looked at him like he was an idiot. “He comes here, we sneak in there—” She pointed to the door that led to the master bedroom, which Jon had admittedly forgotten about. “—wait for the right moment and then we run back downstairs.”

“What is that going to accomplish? He’ll just come after us again!”

“It’ll buy us some time! And who knows, maybe he’ll waste all his bullets or something.”

“Maybe,” scoffed Jon. “That’s reassuring. _Maybe_ we need a real plan.”

“And you have one, do you?” she demanded.

It was on the tip of his tongue to say he did. He could suggest they split up, transform into Ghost once she was gone, and take on the Little Soldier directly. (His super suit was _probably_ bullet-proof, right?) It would be a lot harder without Lady there beside him, but there was nothing he could do about that. The blizzard would keep her stuck wherever she was; for all he knew, she wasn’t even up north anymore.

But then he realized: that was exactly why he _couldn’t_ transform. The blizzard would prevent anyone from coming into the cabin, even a superhero. It was just him, Sansa, and Rickon. If he transformed now and Sansa got so much as a _glimpse_ of Ghost before he could change back, his secret identity would be blown.

Jon took a second to imagine what she would do if she knew he was Ghost. _I don’t think she’d go blabbing to the_ _press_ _or anything, but her_ _father and mother_ _? Maybe._ My _mother? Gods, I hope not. Margaery Tyrell and Joffrey Baratheon? Definitely._

 _And once they know, it’ll be all over._ Everyone _will know, as sure as if Sansa_ did _alert the media herself._

_I can’t let her find out._

With every attack, Jon became more and more familiar with how his transformation worked. He could transform voluntarily now once his tattoo went off, but if he _didn’t_ then after a certain amount of time he changed anyways. If there was a way to stop it, he hadn’t found it yet. He had, however, learned to gauge how much time he had before the change was forced on him based on how much his wrist hurt. If it felt like he needed to amputate, he would transform right then and there, no delays. If it felt like someone had poked him with a feather, he had...a _long_ time. Hours, even.

Or so he speculated. The pain had never been that intense, and it had never been that mild. Right now, though, his wrist hurt like it had been stung by a bee, which meant he probably had about half an hour, maybe a little less.

Half an hour or less to get his hands on that little toy soldier.

Sansa was still staring him down, hands on her hips, a challenge in her eyes. Come up with something better, her eyes said.

“Your plan isn’t bad,” he relented, and continued on before she could take that as an admission of defeat. “But we need to go on the offense at some point. We need to change him back; we can’t depend on Ghost and Lady to show up and do it for us, not in the middle of a blizzard.”

“You’re right.” She said the words so grudgingly one would think they’d been dragged out of her, kicking and screaming. When she spoke next, though, there was no hostility in her voice. “Did you see where he’s keeping the toy? I couldn’t find it.”

“No, I couldn’t see it, either,” he told her. If she could set aside their feud for now to focus on saving Rickon, so could he. “I’m not sure where he could be hiding—”

_Wait a second..._

“What does that toy have to do with anything?” he asked, feigning confusion. What he really meant was, how did she know they needed to get the toy to change him back?

“Oh, well—” She faltered. “I... I’ve seen the videos, you know, on Arya’s blog? The fights never seem to end until Lady or Ghost take something from the supervillain, and then the purple mist comes out and turns into one of those birds... So for Rickon, it must be that little toy soldier, right? We saw the bird infect it.”

_She’s really paying attention to these attacks. I need to be more careful around her._

“Okay, so we’ll look for the toy,” he said, and she visibly relaxed. _Weird._ “But we also need to take it from him, _and_ make sure that bird doesn’t get away. Ghost always freezes it, right?”

“Yeah, but unfortunately for us, we don’t have magic ice powers,” she pointed out.

He shrugged his shoulders. “I guess we’ll have to get creative. You’re creative, aren’t you? You do artsy stuff all the time.”

“ _Artsy stuff._ ” Sansa rolled her eyes to the heavens. “I play an instrument and I sew. That doesn’t make me a creative genius!”

“I’ll settle for a creative amateur.”

He could actually _see_ the monumental effort it took her to refrain from pinching him.

“What’s taking him so long?” she asked instead. “It’s been _ages_ and he hasn’t even followed us up the stairs.”

It occurred to Jon that if Little Soldier could shoot through a door, he could probably also shoot through the floor. _Yeah, I am_ not _mentioning that to Sansa. She’ll lose it._

“We can’t hide in here forever. We should find something to use as a weapon, and then—”

“And then run out there and get shot? No thank you!”

Before Jon could answer, they heard the gun go off downstairs. Then there was a loud thump, followed by a series of thuds that drew closer and closer. Little Soldier was climbing the stairs.

Without pausing to think it through (he’d immediately chicken out) or run his idea by Sansa (she’d immediately tell him no), he snatched up the plunger by the toilet, unlocked the door and burst into the hallway, letting loose a war cry Rickon would be proud of.

Only to come face-to-face with a bear.

Jon lost it. “ _AHHHHHHHHH!_ ”

A hand grasped the back of his shirt, and Jon allowed it to drag him back into the bathroom. Sansa turned the lock and then rounded on him.

“What the _hell_ were you thinking?” she shrieked.

Later, he would be struck dumb by the realization that she could’ve just locked the door behind him and left him to fend for himself, but _she hadn’t_.

Right now, though, his brain wasn’t working properly. It wasn’t working, period.

“That was a _bear_ ,” he said.

“Yes, it was, and you ran right at it!”

“A bear,” he repeated. He was shaking all over, and gripping the plunger he’d picked up like it was his lifeline. “A real— An actual—”

Sansa sighed, her temper subsiding. “It wasn’t real.”

“ _Of course it was real!_ ” Jon’s voice rose to an embarrassingly high pitch. “Did you see the size of that thing? It’s claws? It’s—”

“There were no claws, Jon. That was a stuffed bear. The one from the living room, only way bigger.”

Jon glared at her. “I don’t believe you.”

“Fine, then. See for yourself.” Sansa undid the lock, yanked the door open and pushed him out, all while Jon was too stunned to react.

It was indeed a giant stuffed bear, though in Jon’s humble opinion, no less fearsome for its lack of claws or its chewed up ear.

“Okay, I’ve seen enough, thank you!”

Sansa pulled him back inside. Closed the door and turned the lock for what must’ve been the billionth time. Glared at him.

“No more running off without a plan!”

Jon ignored her. “You know what this means, don’t you?” he asked, almost dizzy with relief. “That gun can’t possibly be real. Why would he bother with a stuffed bear if he had a real gun? Really, can you even _imagine_ Rickon with a real gun?”

“I think you might actually be right, but let’s not celebrate just yet.”

“No, I know,” he agreed, dread chasing away his relief. “If he can bring toys to life—not to mention make them huge—then we’re in big trouble. I mean, there’s the stuffed wolf...”

“The tank from that Lego set.”

“Ricky the Robot Cowgirl.”

“Those cat figurines Arya keeps up here because they don’t fit in her room back home,” suggested Sansa. Those things were no joke, Jon knew; in addition to regular house cats, Arya’s collection included _other_ kinds of cats. The predator kind. A jaguar. A cheetah. At least three different tigers. They were just lucky Arya didn’t have any sabre-tooths.

Still, Arya’s cats were nothing compared to—

“Bran’s dinosaur collection!” they exclaimed in unison, staring at each other in horror.

Desperate to get to the dinosaurs before Little Soldier did, they came up with a haphazard plan to trap the bear in the bathroom. Jon flung the door open, luring the bear in, while Sansa waited in the master bedroom. As soon as the bear was all the way in, Sansa ran into the hallway, Jon ran into the bedroom, and they closed both doors. Sansa jammed a chair underneath the handle and then joined Jon in the bedroom, and together they pushed the bed in front of the door.

They replaced the chair in the hallway with a dresser and then raced to the bedroom Bran and Rickon shared, and thank _Gods_ , all the dinosaurs were there, lined up in a row on top of a bookshelf.

Jon grabbed Bran’s duffel bag from the floor and dumped its contents onto the bed. Sansa helped him load all the dinosaurs inside and then said, “Let’s take them to my room!”

“Why your room?” asked Jon, who had been planning to just shove the bag under Bran’s bed.

“I’ll put them in my underwear drawer, and Arya’s, too, if I run out of space.” She took one look at Jon’s mortified face and said, “See? Perfect hiding spot! He’ll never look in there.”

Well, Jon certainly couldn’t argue with that logic. “I’ll guard the door for you while you, uh...get that done.”

She took _forever_. He had to fend off the stuffed wolf and Ricky the Robot Cowgirl with only a plunger. Granted, the wolf’s teeth were dull and Ricky only had a chain that she tried to lasso Jon with, but _still_.

“What the hell took you so long?” he hissed when she finally reemerged from her and Arya’s room with the duffel bag, now empty. By that point he’d stolen the chain, lassoed the wolf together with Ricky, and sent them hurtling back down the stairs with a forceful kick. “Any longer and that tank might’ve figured out how to climb stairs!”

“Sorry, I forgot I’d packed all my underwear in my suitcase this morning. I had to take them out and put them back in the drawer, and the bra straps kept getting all tangled—”

“Right, never mind.” Jon told himself he wasn’t blushing, and his eyes absolutely _were not_ drawn to the thin blue strap currently visible on her right shoulder.

“I hid some of Arya’s cats, too, so if Little Soldier animates them the worst we’ll have to deal with is, like, shedding and minor scratches.”

“Good idea. Listen, I’ve been thinking about where he could be hiding that toy soldier, and I think it’s probably under his hat,” Jon told her.

She looked a little skeptical. “Under his hat?”

“Where else could he fit that thing?”

“It _is_ a pretty tall hat,” admitted Sansa. “How are we going to get it from him?”

“I don’t know. How are we even going to get downstairs with that tank waiting for us at the bottom?”

“We need a plan,” she concluded. “Again.”

They stole the covers from the master bedroom and threw them down onto the tank, racing to the third step from the bottom and then leaping over the tank before it could recover. There was no one to fend off in the kitchen, but the sight that awaited them in the living room had Jon halting without warning, leaving Sansa to nearly bowl him over.

Rickon was there, his gun pointed at...

 _No,_ Jon thought, recoiling in horror. _We hid them all—_

 _Except the one Maester Luwin bought Bran last week,_ he suddenly recalled. _It’s his newest one, and he kept it downstairs because Rickon wanted to play with it..._

“Sansa, Jon! You came back!” Rickon said in delight. “Bran said you would. You all went away and left me alone, and Bran said you’d be back soon but I didn’t believe him. I don’t want to be alone, so I’ve been making friends to play with me, watch!”

And he shot the T-Rex.

* * *

The blizzard didn’t last as long as Bran had expected. By dinner time it had eased up enough for the Starks to drive back to Winterfell, which they did after thanking the Reeds for everything.

If it weren’t for his worry over Rickon and the others, the hours he’d spent cooped up in Greywater Watch might’ve very well been the highlight of his weekend. The power had gone out not long after his father had called Winterfell, but luckily his mother and Mrs. Reed had noticed the blizzard gathering and built up the fireplace before Bran and the others had even reached the cabin.

Bran had liked only having the roaring fire for light. He’d liked sitting on the floor with Arya and Jojen and Meera, watching the flames and sharing spooky stories in hushed whispers while the adults sat on the couches talking among themselves. He’d liked having to search the kitchen cupboards from top to bottom, flashlight in hand, as if he were an explorer scavenging for food. He’d liked gathering around the kitchen table with everyone, eating the bounty they’d found by candlelight, and then trying to make up their own card games to play after they’d grown bored with all the ones they knew.

But his worry for Rickon and Sansa and Jon had loomed over him the whole time. They were all alone up there in Winterfell, and what if Jon and Sansa couldn’t stop arguing long enough to make sure they had light, and food, and warmth? And Rickon—he’d be so frightened, and if they couldn’t set their differences aside they’d only make it worse.

When he’d confessed his fears to Arya, she’d told him he was being stupid. “They’re obnoxious when they get going, but it’s not like they _hate_ each other. I mean...I don’t _think_ they do.”

She’d had a point. Their constant bickering had only started late last summer; they’d co-existed just fine for _years_ before that. Surely a few months of arguing didn’t erase years of...not friendship, maybe, but at least friendliness. They’d been like amiable neighbors who happened to bump into each other every once in a while, greeting each other with smiles (in Sansa’s case) or nods (in Jon’s case) and then going on their way, making awkward but mostly peaceful small talk when they _had_ to. 

Really, this school year was the first time Bran could remember them being in each other’s orbit on a daily basis, with Sansa taking mostly senior classes and Jon redoing his entire senior year. And for once, there was no one to keep their attention off each other. Robb and Theon had graduated, Arya was a freshman, and Bran was still in middle school. Well, there was the teacher to focus on, and lessons, and homework, and friends, but...

Bran had no idea what came after that. He had no idea why they weren’t able to just go to class and stay out of each other’s way like they always had before. He had no idea why they were suddenly reacting to one another like a lit match dropped into a barrel of gasoline. None of his other siblings seemed to understand it, either. Bran wasn’t sure Sansa and Jon understood it themselves.

 _But even if they_ did _hate each other, they_ love _Rickon. He’s only seven, and it’s their job to look after him until Mom and Dad get back, so...they must’ve worked it out, just for today._

He’d find out soon enough, he supposed.

The drive back was so nerve-wracking; he wished they could’ve just called again before setting out, but the telephone lines had gone down soon after the power, and it would probably be weeks before they were fixed. Cell phones were no good, either—they always brought their phones, but none of them ever got service up here.

By the time Winterfell came into view, Bran was gripping the edge of his seat so tightly his knuckles turned white.

“Well, it’s still standing, at least,” said Arya. “That’s a good sign, right?”

His parents didn’t seem to think so, but Bran did. He’d been plagued by images of Winterfell reduced to ashes, Jon and Sansa having been too busy yelling at each other to keep the fireplace under control.

Cat was the first one out of the car, calling out to Rickon and the others before she’d even gotten the front door unlocked.

No response.

“They probably just couldn’t hear you, Cat,” Ned reasoned as Catelyn jiggled the key in the lock furiously. The instant it finally opened they all piled in one after the other, shouting names and greetings and questions about whether anyone was still alive.

No response.

The hallway was pristine. The stairs were fine. The kitchen was a _disaster_.

They stared in disbelief. Flour coated what felt like every available surface, the bag itself lying on the counter, ripped open, its insides spilled out in a miniature landslide. Pots and pans were scattered throughout the room, on the counters, the floor—there was even one wedged between a cabinet and the ceiling. A plunger stood on top of the kitchen table like the world’s ugliest centrepiece, and beside it—

“That’s my Tyrannosaurus rex figurine!” Bran said in dismay. He hurried towards it and promptly fell flat on his face.

“Bran!” Arya made her way over with caution and helped him up.

“Thanks,” he said. “The floor’s all slippery.” He picked up his dinosaur. Its head was covered in flour and its limbs were slick with soap. _What did those barbarians_ do _to you?_ he thought, cradling it in his hands protectively as he walked to the sink.

“I could’ve sworn that at some point in the past sixteen years, we taught Sansa that dumping soap everywhere doesn’t clean up a mess,” Ned said mildly.

Cat wasn’t quite as calm. “When I get my hands on them—!” She cut off all at once, apparently too angry to think up a proper threat, and marched into the living room. Ned followed her.

“There must be an explanation for this,” said Bran, willing to be generous now that his dinosaur was clean.

“Like what?” Arya scoffed, nudging a pot out of her way with her foot. “A tornado blew through the house?”

Exclamations of shock from the living room. Bran and Arya looked at each other, and Bran set his T-Rex down on the tidiest section of counter space he could find.

The living room was even worse than the kitchen. Pillows were torn open, feathers were everywhere, and the contents of every shelf in the room were littered across the floor. In the centre of the chaos lay Rickon and Sansa and Jon, sound asleep.

Bran didn’t know what surprised him more: the fact that Rickon didn’t seem to have one hair out of place, the fact that Sansa and Jon looked like they’d gone swimming in a garbage dump and then been put through a car wash, or the fact that they were _cuddling_.

“That’s _gross_ ,” complained Arya, wrinkling her nose. Then, immediately after: “I’m taking a picture.”

She did, and Ned told her to put the phone down. “I think whatever your mother has in mind for them will be punishment enough.”

But Cat’s anger seemed to have deserted her, her face pale now rather than rage-red. Her eyes were fixed on an upside-down vase on the coffee table, and through the clear glass Bran could see—

He gasped. There was a bird trapped in the vase, beating its wings against the glass, trying to get out. It lacked a sinister purple aura, but it was very clearly one of the birds that turned people into supervillains.

Arya’s jaw dropped. “Who— _How_ —”

Jon stirred, nuzzling Sansa’s hair, seemingly unbothered by (or, more likely, not yet truly aware of) the fact that she was half on top of him and he had his arms around her.

“Jon?” Bran ventured tentatively, torn between his desire to know what had happened and his reluctance to witness the uproar that would occur if Jon woke fully and realized the position he and Sansa were in.

“Yeah, what’sit?” slurred Jon.

“What happened?”

“Little soldier,” he muttered. “Rickon. Fixed it.”

Ned picked up the toy soldier lying on the table next to the vase, examining it thoughtfully for a few moments before putting it down and setting the bird free. Cat opened the window just long enough for the bird to fly out and closed it again before too much falling snow could get in.

“Bran.” Jon seemed a little more aware now, though he still hadn’t opened his eyes.

“Yes, Jon?”

“Bran... Need to tell you.” There was an urgency in his voice that had them all leaning in, waiting to hear whatever important knowledge or advice he was about to bestow upon them. “Don’t _eve_ _r_...try to fight a T-Rex...with a plunger. It’s a...bad idea...”

Sansa yawned, snuggling deeper into Jon’s embrace. “All—” she murmured, then yawned again. “All your ideas...are bad.”

“All _your_ ideas are bad,” he retorted, in the most indignant half-asleep voice Bran had ever heard. “Shoved me into the hall...with the bear...”

“A _bear_?” Arya blurted out loudly. Cat shushed her and they all held their breath, waiting to see if either would wake.

“Wasn’t real,” Sansa mumbled in protest. Her lips turned down at the corners in a guilty frown. “Arya...I hid all the dinos...with the...” She spoke the next word so quietly none of them could make it out. “Don’t tell Bran...”

“What? _Where_ did you hide my—” Arya clapped a hand over his mouth.

“Later,” she hissed, removing her hand only after he’d nodded in reluctant agreement.

“It looks like they’ve had a difficult day,” whispered Ned, gently untangling Rickon’s hand from Sansa’s. He gathered his youngest son in his arms and lifted him with ease. “The least we could do is clean up for them.”

Bran and Arya stifled their groans.

“Yes.” Cat went to stand beside Ned, brushed Rickon’s hair back from his forehead. “We should put this one to bed first, though. And as for the other two...”

She considered them for a few moments. “Leave them, I suppose,” she said finally. “I doubt we’d be able to pry them apart without waking them.”

His parents left the room, though Cat returned shortly after with a blanket. She fanned it out and dropped it on top of Sansa and Jon, then went to help Ned tuck Rickon in.

Bran eyed the mess in front of him, thought of the mess behind him, and instantly decided, “I’m going to look for my dinosaurs.”

“What? Hey! I’m not cleaning this up by myself!”

He ran for the stairs, Arya hot on his heels, leaving the heroes of the day to slumber on.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The stuff about Life and Guess Who? probably made no sense if you’ve never played those games (and probably even if you have), but all you really need to know about that part is that Jon got wrecked and was a sourpuss about it.


	7. Queen of Thorns

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To the people who commented, thanks so much, I'm really glad you all liked last chapter! It was one of my favourites to write. 
> 
> Also, I hope everyone had a good holiday season! And I'm hoping that even though there's a lot of garbage to deal with in 2017, it will turn out much better than last year.

“You both know this is getting out of hand,” said Alysane Mormont, leaning back against her desk, her solemn gaze intent on them. “You’re bright kids. I know you can do better than this, _you_ know you can do better than this, and I’m willing to give you both one last chance to prove it to all three of us.”

Sansa had spent the past ten minutes with her arms folded across her chest, eyes on the floor, shame-faced, but now she perked up. “You’re letting us redo the lab?”

It was the first time she’d spoken since Ms. Mormont had shouted down her and Jon’s attempts to pin the blame solely on each other, but she couldn’t contain her disbelief. Surely this incident was the last straw and she was doomed to fail Biology and be disgraced forever.

“No, I'm not. We ordered just enough kits for each pair in both this class and my afternoon class to do the lab once. Plus a couple of extras that _other_ students will be using because they need a redo for _valid_ reasons.” Her tone made it perfectly clear that their reason—they’d fought so furiously over how to dissect the fetal pig that they’d somehow gotten the very parts they were supposed to be examining all over their table and the floor—did _not_ count as valid.

“Right,” Sansa said meekly. Jon didn’t say anything. He looked like he might very well never speak again. _Good,_ she thought, and there was a vicious edge to it that almost took her by surprise. _Him speaking is what got us into this mess in the first place._

“I’ll have to figure out something you can do in place of the lab—something that you can do on your _own_ time. I’m here to teach and your classmates are here to learn, not listen to the two of you arguing.”

“Of course, I understand,” Sansa said in a rush, face burning. She wanted to crawl under a rock and pretend this day had never happened, but she couldn’t. It would be impossible to pretend with her clothes still filthy from her efforts to clean up the mess she and Jon had made.

 _I think Jon looks even worse than I do, though. He certainly_ smells _worse._ That made her feel a bit better.

“Ms. Mormont,” Jon finally spoke up. “Is there any chance we could do this make-up assignment separately?”

Sansa cursed herself for not thinking of it first. _She_ could’ve asked in a way that wouldn’t make the teacher’s face cloud over like the sky in a thunderstorm.

“You’re in no position to be asking for more favors, Jon,” Ms. Mormont said. “I could _easily_ just give you both a failing grade on this lab and leave you scrambling to make up for it for the rest of the semester.”

Jon immediately looked ashamed of himself. “You’re right, I’m sorry.”

She softened a little, sighing. “Alright, that’s all. I’ll let you both know when I figure out what your redo assignment will be. You should have enough to time to go home and clean up before the concert this afternoon.”

They headed for the door, Sansa halting when the teacher called out her name. She turned around and was surprised to find Ms. Mormont smiling at her. “I’m looking forward to your solo, Sansa. Good luck!”

Sansa thanked her and then left. She half expected Jon to be waiting for her to say something nasty the moment they were out of the teacher’s earshot, but he was already storming off down the hall.

 _He has no right to be mad. This was his fault,_ she told herself, but a little voice in the back of her head reminded her that she’d hardly prepared for this lab at all, having spent most of the past week practicing for the concert. She’d been so focused on that she’d even let her efforts to translate the book slip. The only thing she _hadn’t_ ignored in favor of her flute was the Red Viper; supervillains were kind of hard to ignore.

In her defense, she’d had the solo sprung on her pretty last minute—Margaery had originally volunteered for it, but she’d come down with a bad cold over the long weekend and had suggested to Shae that Sansa do it instead.

 _She’s always getting me into this kind of stuff!_ Sansa thought in dismay. _First it was the senior classes, and now I’m going to make a fool of myself in front of the entire school!_

Well, if she did, maybe she could just figure out a way to be Lady all the time. As she cleaned herself off in the bathroom as best she could, she amused herself by imagining doing daily activities as a superhero—going to school, going shopping, going to the movies, all while wearing her grey super suit and mask. 

_I’d never be able to accessorize again. Well, not unless I got really creative._

The memory came to her without her consciously searching for it. _“You’re creative, aren’t you? You do artsy stuff all the time.”_

Her smile fell. She dried her hands, gave herself a quick once-over in the mirror, and left the bathroom. She had to get to the Tyrell’s (as Margaery had insisted over text) and clean up for real, not think about the one day where she’d actually believed she and Jon might be able to co-exist peacefully for the rest of the year.

Yet now that she’d started thinking about it, she couldn’t stop. _I don’t know what happened. We took on a supervillain together without me even needing to transform, saved Rickon, silently agreed to never mention the cuddling_ ever _—and yet we’ve been fighting worse than ever since we got back to school! We took one step forward and about a million steps back._

She couldn’t explain it, but when she’d greeted Margaery on Tuesday morning and Marg had playfully said, _“Okay, you have until the_ _first_ _bell rings to rant about how Jon Snow annoyed you to pieces_ _over the_ _weekend, but I don’t want to hear anymore after that!”_ every ounce of resentment she’d ever felt towards him had come rushing back, and she’d found herself detailing the argument she’d had with Jon in the woods instead of their battle with the Little Soldier.

When it came time for biology class that day, he’d been pissed off at her from the get-go—she hadn’t had to fire off a single insult or even a dirty look. It was like they’d just left the whole experience behind at Winterfell, slipping back into their usual pattern as if nothing had changed.

 _I guess nothing has,_ she thought, and then shook her head until the feeling of melancholy accompanying the thought disappeared. _Who cares? I always knew I’d never get along with Jon Snow._

* * *

Arya opened the front door and immediately froze, biting back a shout of greeting. Her mother was talking to someone in the kitchen, her voice raised in what she quickly identified as frustration.

“—already told you, Ned’s looked into it and he’s found _nothing_.”

A pause. _She must be talking on the phone,_ Arya thought, torn between letting her mother know she was there, going upstairs without a word, or…

Her mother spoke again before she could decide. “Lysa, I _a_ _m_ sorry for what happened to Jon, but it’s been a month, Ned has done everything he can, and yet he hasn’t found so much as a _footprint_ pointing to the Lannisters.”

 _That settles that._ Arya flattened herself against the wall and inched closer, straining her ears, not wanting to miss a single word. If she listened hard enough, she could _just_ pick up her aunt’s furious babbling through the phone, though she was too far away to make out what was being said.

It didn’t take long before Catelyn interrupted her sister. “ _We can’t!_ Don’t you understand that? Jaime Lannister kidnapped my two youngest, almost killed one of them, would’ve killed my entire family if given the chance, and yet he’s still walking around free! Robert won’t hear a word against his wife and her family unless it’s coming from his own mouth, and he wouldn’t move against them even if Ned _could_ get through to him! Not with all those damn birds on the loose, and not when the Lannisters run this entire city!”

Whatever Aunt Lysa said in response to that didn’t seem to impress Cat. “You _don’t_ understand, or you wouldn’t be asking me to risk the lives of my entire family!” she said after only a few seconds. “There’s nothing we can do, there’s nothing _to_ do. Ned followed the lead you gave him, and it led him nowhere at all!”

Another pause. When Catelyn spoke next, her voice much calmer. It was also colder than Arya imagined Arctic waters to be. “She’ll be sorry to hear you can’t make it.”

“…Thank you, yes, I’ll tell her.”

Arya slunk back to the front door and tugged it open while her mother exchanged frosty goodbyes with Aunt Lysa, then slammed it loudly.

“Mom, I’m home!” she said, wiping her boots on the welcome mat, heart hammering. _Oh Gods, she’ll never buy it!_ _S_ _he probably knew I was there the whole time, she’ll ground me_ forever _—_

Her mother gasped. “Arya! You startled me!” As if to prove it, she appeared in the hallway, clutching her chest. “What are you doing home so early? I thought you preferred eating lunch at school.”

 _Wow, she’s really out of it._ “It’s the concert today, remember? They let us go at the end of second period.”

The look on her mother’s face made it instantly obvious to Arya that she _hadn’t_ remembered. She recovered quickly, however, and said, “Yes, of course. In fact, your Aunt Lysa just called to wish Sansa luck this afternoon.”

“Why couldn’t she tell Sansa herself at the concert?”

Cat pressed her lips together in a thin line. “It turns out she can’t make it,” she said. “So she gave her ticket to an old friend of ours, Petyr Baelish.”

“That Littlefinger guy who tried to help find Rickon when the Kingslayer took him?” Arya asked, but when her mother gave her a sharp look she wished she could take the words back.

“I see you’ve been eavesdropping on my late night conversations with your father.”

“Just the one,” said Arya, and it was true. The phone call she’d overheard not two minutes ago _didn’t_ count as a late night conversation with her father. “Anyway, why’d she give her ticket to him? What kind of aunt gives a grown man a ticket to her teenage niece’s high school concert? What kind of grown man goes to the high school concert of a teenage girl he’s never even met?”

“He _has_ met Sansa, actually, at that dinner party back in December. You didn’t get to meet him because you didn’t go.”

“Bran and Rickon didn’t have to go!”

“I know, Arya. I’m not bringing it up to scold you, I’m just explaining,” her mother said, and if nothing else, Arya _did_ believe she didn’t want to rehash an old argument that had lasted an entire week. “He met her at the party and they had a long conversation about music—Petyr played the clarinet back in high school.”

 _Of course they had a long conversation about music. Of course Sansa didn’t just stand there uncomfortably, lying through her teeth about how_ interesting _all her classes are, and how the only reason she hasn’t planned out the rest of her life from where she’ll go to university to what color balloons she’ll have at her first baby shower is that she’s, “Keeping her options open.”_

“You played the flute like Sansa, didn’t you?”

Arya had sat with her mother and listened to Sansa practice once, and Catelyn had smiled and said that one day, Sansa would play better than she herself ever had. For a whole month afterwards, Arya had practiced the drums as obnoxiously as she possibly could whenever her mother was around. Cat only invested in some quality ear plugs and told her to keep at it.

“I did. Petyr and I were in the band together, along with your Uncle Brandon.”

“Uncle Brandon played the trombone, right?” she asked.

Cat smiled fondly. “Yes, and he was very good at it.”

“Was Littlefinger any good at the clarinet?” Not that Arya cared either way. All she really wanted was to go up to her room and try to make sense of everything her mother had said to Aunt Lysa.

“He was very dedicated, and he could read music better than either of us. Better than the teacher, even,” said Catelyn.

“So, he sucked.”

Her mother’s smile turned into a scowl. “Arya—”

“I won’t be able to insult him at the concert if I don’t even talk to him,” Arya said, and her mother sighed. “Great, so I’ll stay with my friends and you can introduce me to him some other time! Glad that’s settled! I’m going upstairs to get ready, unless Sansa’s still in the bathroom.”

“No, she called earlier to say she’s getting ready at Margaery’s house. Apparently none of the makeup she owns is ‘sophisticated’ enough for a high school concert.” Cat was no longer scowling, but she didn’t look any more pleased than she had before.

“Ohhh, _sophisticated_ makeup?” Arya shook her head in mock dismay. “First it’ll just be sophisticated eyeshadow, then it’ll be sophisticated lipstick, and before you know it, you’ll have to tell people _I’m_ the good daughter!”

It didn’t have the intended effect. Instead of sighing in annoyance or even just laughing at the joke, her mother looked at her so seriously her face grew hot.

“I tell people you’re a little rebellious, a lot smart, and braver than I ever could be,” Cat said, never once dropping her gaze from her daughter’s. “I tell them you’re going to be the next Spielberg, or a gold-medalist in fencing, or a brain surgeon. I tell them you drive me up the wall sometimes and I wouldn’t trade you for the world.”

At a complete loss for words, her chest tight and her eyes burning more than her cheeks were, Arya did the only thing she could: she gave a mumbled excuse and fled.

* * *

The third time Petyr Baelish apologized for her Aunt Lysa’s absence, Sansa gave up on trying to reassure him and just smiled sweetly.

When she’d first met Petyr, she’d talked to him for over half an hour and enjoyed every minute of it. He knew so much about music, and he’d asked to come hear her play sometime. He’d even offered to speak to some musicians he knew about getting her a summer internship with the Westerosi Orchestra (if she was good enough, though he’d hastened to tell her he had little doubt she would be), and she’d been _thrilled_.

Now, nervous about her solo to the point of nausea, she couldn’t wait to get rid of him. She was horrified he’d come at all—not only would she mess up in front of her classmates and her teachers, she’d also lose her one shot at the opportunity of a lifetime!

Oblivious to her thoughts, Petyr said, “I’m very much looking forward to your performance later. My friends in the orchestra remember Cat’s playing from years ago, and they’re eager to hear about her daughter’s.”

 _I’m going to throw up._ She almost told him that, too, but just then a voice called out, “Littlefinger, my friend! I _had_ hoped I would run into you here.”

Sansa turned to watch her savior stride towards them and was surprised to find she recognized the man.

“Hello, Mr.—” _What’s his last name, again? I should know this, he works with my father!_ “Hello, sir,” she quickly settled on.

“Just Varys is fine, my dear.” He smiled at her, then at Littlefinger, whose own smile seemed to have soured. _Strange._ “What a shame that you and I are the ones who had the day off, rather than Ned! He’s talked of nothing else this past week but his daughter’s upcoming solo.”

Sansa was so flustered by this she forgot she’d been on the verge of puking. “I’m sure he didn’t really…”

“He did, I assure you,” said Petyr, recovering his smile easily. _Did I imagine that odd look on his face? I must’ve._ “The mayor got sick of it after a few days and had him constantly running errands to get him out of the office.”

“I’ve never heard him talk so much. I imagine everyone in the Red Keep knows about this concert, even the doorman,” Varys said, and Sansa covered her face with her hands even as a great wave of fondness washed over her.

_Dad, I can’t believe you did that!_

Varys only chuckled. “Well, Petyr and I had best leave you to prepare! Good luck!”

“Yes, I think you’re wanted elsewhere.” Petyr nodded at Brienne Tarth, easily spotted even in the crowded auditorium. “Good luck, sweetling.”

Sansa thanked them both and approached her gym teacher from the previous semester, wondering why she’d been waving Sansa over.

“There you are, Sansa! Shae wants everyone to start getting ready.”

 _Ah, that’s right. She volunteered to help us set up._ Brienne was a friend of her mother’s—of all the Starks, really—and Sansa had known her since before either of them had even stepped foot in this high school. Which was why it didn’t surprise her that Brienne had wanted to help out with the concert; Brienne loved music, and she even played the tuba in her spare time.

Sansa followed Brienne up the stairs that led to the off-stage area where her fellow bandmates were already gathered. _Except Joffrey,_ she noted, and couldn’t bring herself to feel bad about her sigh of relief. She could definitely do without his commentary on her playing today of all days.

“Sansa!” Shae came rushing up to them, Margaery a step behind her, holding Sansa’s flute case.

“Marg, you’re not my maid,” said Sansa, taking the case from her friend. “I could’ve gotten that myself, you should be relaxing!” Margaery had already been nice enough to do her makeup for her, even though Sansa had shied away from half her suggestions and only agreed to let her put on ‘boring’ makeup.

“I have a cold, not pneumonia, and I’ve done enough _relaxing_ in the past couple weeks to make me want to tear my hair out.”

That statement would’ve been far more convincing, in Sansa’s opinion, if Margaery’s voice weren’t hoarse from the dreadful cough she’d been enduring for six days straight now.

Shae thought so, too, and wasn’t afraid to say it. “Sansa’s right. If that cough keeps up much longer, it could mean you have bronchitis. Go sit down and drink some water. You need to stay hydrated.”

Margaery sighed but did as she was told. When she was gone, Brienne asked Shae how she wanted the chairs set up behind the curtains, and Shae went centre stage with her, gesturing a lot as she explained how she wanted them positioned.

Brienne listened more earnestly than Sansa thought necessary, and she watched Shae’s emphatic gesturing with a warm smile on her face. _Huh. Maybe her love of music isn’t the only reason she volunteered to help with the concert. Oh, but doesn’t Shae have a boyfriend?_ Sansa frowned. She didn’t want Shae’s relationship to crash and burn, but neither did she want Brienne to get her heart broken. 

Suddenly embarrassed at her own thoughts, she shook her head. _It’s not like I’m some kind of love expert. I can’t even get Joffrey to ask me out properly, and it’s been over two and a half_ years _. Now he only looks at me twice when it suits him. What do I know about Brienne’s feelings? Maybe she just considers Shae a really good friend._

As if her thoughts had summoned him, she heard Joffrey shouting from the bottom of the stairs.

“I don’t care if you have a ticket, you pathetic old drunk! Security, remove him from the building!”

Sansa set her flute case down on a nearby chair and rushed down the steps. She found Joffrey glaring at a man with a beer belly and blotchy skin, seemingly waiting for the two security guards beside him to haul the man away.

“Ah, Mr. Baratheon,” one of the guards said, and Joffrey immediately snapped back, “What?”

“I don’t think this man is _currently_ drunk, Mr. Baratheon, and he does have a ticket, so—”

“I don’t pay you to think!”

The other guard Sansa recognized easily by the burn on his face. _Sandor Clegane, I think his name was?_ _The one who called me a pretty, talking bird…_

Clegane rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “You don’t pay us at all, your father does. And right now, we’re here to keep the students and guests safe, not do whatever you tell us to.”

“I’m just here to see my goddaughter perform in the band,” the man chimed in. “She plays the clarinet—”

“No one cares what instrument your goddaughter plays!” Joffrey looked the man over and sneered at him. “Though I’m not sure what her parents were thinking when they named _you_ her godfather. Do you think she even wants you here? You’ll only embarrass her!”

The man’s face fell and he turned towards the door that exited to the parking lot. Clegane and the other guard glanced at each other, both seeming dissatisfied by this outcome, but neither moved to stop him. Joffrey’s mouth twisted into a triumphant smirk.

“Wait!” Sansa pushed past Joffrey without pausing to think, and the man stopped, looking back at her in confusion.

Joffrey looked confused, too, as if he’d forgotten she could walk and talk without his say-so. “Sansa, go back on stage! You don’t need to concern yourself with this!”

For what might’ve been the first time ever, Sansa ignored him. “Sir, if you bought a ticket, you should stay for the concert. I’m sure your goddaughter would be very disappointed if you left now.”

The man looked down at his worn out, ill-fitting suit and frowned as if it were proof he was everything Joffrey had accused him of being—a pathetic old drunk who would embarrass his goddaughter.

Sansa looked at his worn out, ill-fitting suit and saw a loving godfather who’d taken more care in his appearance than half the people in the audience. Who bothered putting on a suit for a high school concert? People rich enough to buy out the entire auditorium, and this one man who wanted to look his absolute best while he listened to his goddaughter take part in a concert she’d probably been practicing for all month.

“Go take a seat in the audience,” Sansa encouraged him, but still he hesitated, eyes on the boy he no doubt recognized as the mayor’s son.

So she smiled at Joffrey, suddenly realizing she’d gotten so used to faking smiles for him over the past few years, it now came to her effortlessly. _What kind of romance is that? What kind of_ friendship _is that?_ _We’_ _r_ _e_ _not_ really _dating_ _,_ _but_ _we_ are _friend_ _s…aren’t we?_

“It’s bad luck to turn away an audience member, you know,” she lied, still faking a smile. “You’ll miss a note for every empty seat.”

Joffrey eyed her suspiciously. “I’ve never heard that before.” He looked around for someone to back him up, settling on Sandor Clegane. “That’s a load of bullshit, isn’t it?”

 _Well, there goes that idea._ Part of her was already planning an excuse to calm Joffrey down. Another part of her _wanted_ him to know that she didn’t agree with every word out of his mouth, she didn’t find all of his jokes funny, and she would no longer sit down and shut up like a misbehaving child put in time out whenever he told her to.

Clegane gave a sigh that bordered on a yawn and stared down his nose at them expressionlessly. “No, it’s true. One note for every seat. An entire bar every line if there’s an empty row. Are we done here, or not? I’m not getting paid to stand around babysitting either one of you.”

Sansa was careful to hide her surprise, keeping a polite smile on her face as she waited for Joffrey’s verdict.

“Fine, then,” he said, . “Go sit down, you fool.”

The man went, giving Sansa a smile as he passed by her. The guards left soon after with barely a word to Joffrey, though Sansa received a nod from Sandor Clegane.

As soon as they were gone, Joffrey rounded on Sansa. “I— _appreciate_ you looking out for me, but it’s not your place to be interfering like that," he said, in a sour tone that suggested he had never appreciated anything less in his life. "I’m the mayor’s son—”

“—and I’m the daughter of your father’s right-hand man, not a pet for you to order around!” she said, and instantly shrank back, the rush of uncharacteristic boldness abandoning her as abruptly as it had appeared.

_Did I really just say that to him? This isn’t how you get a guy to ask you out!_

And sure enough, Joffrey’s poor attempt at a forgiving smile contorted into a sneer. “My father only keeps yours around out of pity. There are a dozen men working in the Red Keep alone better suited for your father’s job, and one of them will replace him as soon as my father finally comes to his senses.”

 _I’m so stupid!_ she thought, scrambling for a way to fix her mistake and drawing a blank. _He’ll never forgive me for this, I ruined_ everything _!_

But there was another, much quieter voice inside her wondering, _Why do I even_ want _to date him?_ So she could keep faking smiles while he treated everyone like garbage? The way he’d just treated that man? The way he’d treated Sam Tarly not three weeks ago? The way he’d treated her childhood friendno matter how many times she’d asked him not to, before she and Jeyne Poole had finally just stopped hanging out altogether?

The way he treated Sansa’s family? Her brothers, and especially her sister, and even her parents?

 _The way he treats_ me _, no matter how much I try to pretend he doesn’t?_

Yet she’d spent nearly three years of her life teetering on the edge of something more with him,waiting for him to take that last step. How could she just give up now? Joffrey could be nice, he could be thoughtful. It was why she’d liked him so much to begin with; he’d been like a prince straight out of her favorite fairy tales, fair and charming and utterly enchanted by her.

“And as for why _I_ keep _you_ around, well, I’m not even sure!” he said, still sneering at her. “I know it’s not your musical talent, at least—they’d have been better off hiring a mouse to squeak into a microphone than letting you take on Margaery’s solo.”

He used to treat her the way he now treated Margaery. _If he’s really so awful, I would’ve known from the beginning, right? I must’ve done something wrong. I must’ve done_ something _to make him change._

“Maybe it’s your—”

“Sansa, Joffrey! There you two are!” came Shae’s voice from the top of the stairs, interrupting whatever Joffrey had been about to say.

They climbed the stairs to meet her. Sansa used the temporary distraction to pull herself together and force back the tears welling up in her eyes. _Can’t let_ _Marg’s hard work to go to waste,_ she told herself bitterly.

“Joffrey, go set up your trombone. Sansa, I need to have a quick word with you,” Shae said, and she waited until Joffrey had stomped by her to turn her concerned gaze on Sansa.

“What did he say to you?” She frowned when Sansa only shrugged her shoulders in response. “Tell me what he said. You look upset.”

“So what?” Sansa asked. “What does it matter what he said? He’s the mayor’s son and Tywin Lannister’s grandson. He can say whatever he wants whether it upsets me or not.”

Shae reached out and grasped her hands. “No, he _can’t_ say whatever he wants. He can’t treat you however he wants.”

“Or what? I’ll tell him to stop, even though I know he won’t? I’ll complain to the principal who won’t do anything about it, just like he didn’t do anything all the other times someone complained about Joffrey?”

“Tell him to stop, and if he doesn’t, _I_ will do something about it,” said Shae, holding her gaze. “I’ll give him a failing grade in class. I’ll kick him out of the band. I’ll egg his car.”

Sansa laughed, startled by Shae’s fierceness and the tears suddenly prickling at the corners of her eyes again. “You’d be fired and you know it. Please just forget about it.” Before Shae could protest, she pleaded, “I just want to get through this concert without making a fool of myself.”

Shae squeezed her hands once and then let go, moving to pick up Sansa’s flute case. “You won’t make a fool of yourself. You’ve practiced, you know the music, you’re ready. You can do this. Okay?”

“Okay,” she echoed, not really believing it. She took her case from Shae and asked where she should sit, noting that there weren’t enough chairs and Brienne was nowhere in sight; she must’ve gone to get more.

Shae didn’t get a chance to answer, because at that moment Olenna Tyrell came striding over to them from the other end of the stage, one of the programs Margaery had designed for the concert in her hand. Students setting up their instruments almost dove out of her way; Sansa was quick to back up in alarm, but Shae stood her ground. 

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Tyrell. What can I do for you?” she asked, with poise and calm that Sansa had assumed only _Gods_ could have in the face of a wrathful Olenna Tyrell.

“Let’s not mince words, you know _exactly_ why I’m here,” said Olenna, waving the program in the air. “Why has my granddaughter’s solo been given to someone else?”

“Grandmother!” Margaery came rushing up to them, looking more dishevelled than Sansa had ever seen her. “Grandmother, I tried to tell you, I _asked_ to be taken off—”

Olenna waved that aside, too. “Don’t make excuses for them, Margaery. They’ve cheated you out of your rightful—”

“Margaery is sick,” Shae interrupted, and both Sansa and Margaery stared at her in horrified awe. “She’s been sick since the long weekend, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“I _know_ when my own granddaughter is ill, thank you. It was a nasty cold, there’s no doubt about that, but she’s well enough to play now, so she _will_.”

“If you think she’s well enough to play through a song at the level you want her to, let alone an entire _concert_ , you either haven’t been paying enough attention or you just don’t care about her health in the first place,” Shae said, and Sansa couldn’t _believe_ she was still standing upright, head held high, with Olenna glaring at her like that. “She needs to rest. If she has bronchitis—and judging by her cough, she might—that could _easily_ lead to pneumonia.”

“How _dare_ you—” Olenna began, her voice like the boom of thunder, but Shae cut her off.

“I dare because there’s a reason you only found out about this at the last minute, and the reason is that we all knew you’d put a piece of music over your granddaughter’s health!”

They were right in each other’s faces now, and all the students stood frozen in place, gawking at the scene. Leaving Sansa the only one to notice the little bird that fluttered in from the gap between the stage curtain and the ceiling.

Without stopping to think about it, Sansa shoved in between the two women and urged them to calm down. “Do you see that bird over there?” she asked, trying not to get discouraged when neither women looked. “It’s one of those birds that have been possessing people! You need to stop fighting. The more upset you are, the more likely you’ll be targeted—”

“And how would _you_ know anything about it, exactly?” Olenna still didn’t deign to look at Sansa, too busy glaring at Shae over her shoulder.

 _Oh, you know, just the_ _general_ _impression I’_ _ve_ _gotten from a month of, like, exorcising those birds from hapless civilians every few days_ _,_ Sansa thought to herself, but of course she couldn’t say that. “A couple weeks ago my little brother got upset because the power had gone out, and then a bird showed up and—”

“You’re a real expert, I see,” Olenna said, but at least she finally looked up to see the bird diving towards her. “Forget that nonsense about calming down; _I’ll_ deal with this bird the _right_ way.”

She rolled the concert program into a makeshift baseball bat and took a mighty swing.

Margaery screamed as the creature disappeared into the paper, and Shae pulled her and Sansa back, shouting for everyone to run for the exit to the parking lot. Sansa felt the sting in her wrist as Olenna’s eyes briefly glowed purple, stems bursting out of her palms and snaking along her arms. From there they spread down to her legs, then back up her torso, finally stopping at her neck. A rose bloomed there, the petals surrounding her head but not encasing it entirely.

 _I think this might be the most disturbing transformation yet._ No sooner had Sansa thought this than thorns burst from the stems, prompting Margaery to scream again until a coughing fit overtook her.

“All will rue the day they crossed the Queen of Thorns!” Olenna thundered. She raised one hand in the direction the students were fleeing and vines shot out, creeping along the stage floor and blocking off the exit. Then they turned on the students themselves, and Sansa knew she had to do something. She had to get away, she had to transform—

The vines suddenly frosted over, and Ghost dropped down from the rafters, cutting them down with his sword. He flung up a wall of ice to shield everyone from further attacks and then turned to face them, his red eyes flitting between Margaery and Shae before locking on Sansa, who reeled back like the wind had been knocked out of her.

She must’ve pictured this moment a hundred times before. Prepared herself for it almost as intensely as she’d prepared for the concert. Planned what she would say word for word, practiced facial expressions in the mirror, combed through every video on Arya’s blog, taking note of what the general public may have learned about their protectors and what they couldn’t possibly learn from five minute clips of footage in a million years.

Figuring out what Sansa Stark could know, versus what belonged to Lady and Ghost alone.

She’d treated it like a challenge, a test she had to pass. A game, even. One of those video games her siblings loved so much, as if she had an unknown number of lives and she’d lose one every time she behaved towards Ghost the way Lady would. Lose too many lives, make too many mistakes, and it would be game over.

Now that she was actually standing in front of her partner without the suit on—without the mask, the powers, any of it—it seemed laughable. She hadn’t realized what a difference it would make, but now it was so clear: There was no danger of him recognizing her. There never had been. 

Sansa Stark was just some girl he didn’t know, worlds away from the brave and bold superheroine who fought by his side.

* * *

“Arya, come on, _don’t_! There’s no reason for you to go up there, you could get hurt!”

“I’m not Arya, I’m Lumpy!” Lumpy said, watching in bafflement as the rest of the audience ran around like chickens with their heads cut off, completely failing to follow Ghost’s one and only command: evacuate the auditorium in a calm and orderly fashion. “But if I _was_ Arya Stark, I’d remind you that my sister is up there on that stage with a supervillain, and that’s plenty reason!”

“I think what Gendry means is, Ghost is there now, so you should stay where it’s safe and let him handle it,” said Meera, clearly trying to appeal to Arya’s common sense.

Unfortunately for Meera, Arya was nowhere to be found at the moment. There was only Lumpy, and Lumpy didn’t have much in the way of common sense. Exhibit A, the potato sack covering her head with holes for her eyes and mouth. (She really needed to get some more masks.)

“If I do that, the good people of Westeros will miss out on an epic battle,” Lumpy said, unmoved by Meera’s logic. “Hold this, will you, stranger?”

She handed a reluctant Gendry the video camera Arya Stark had brought along to record the concert. Since both of her parents were working and none of her brothers were in high school, she’d taken it upon herself to make sure they could all listen to Sansa’s performance later. She’d seen it as a chance to sharpen her skills as a videographer _and_  brighten her mother’s day—her mother definitely needed it. She was clearly very stressed by that funny business regarding Aunt Lysa and Uncle Jon, or else she wouldn’t have said all that stuff about how great Arya was, Arya had concluded.

But Lumpy didn’t need the video camera. Lumpy had recently realized that if she used her phone and outrageous amounts of data, people could view the latest attacks live through an online stream. _Live!_ As if her blog was an official news outlet!

(It was a good thing Lumpy didn’t pay phone bills.)

“Why is this so important to you?” Gendry asked, cradling Arya’s video camera in his hands, his brow furrowed in what Lumpy refused to recognize as worry.

Arya Stark would’ve scoffed and rolled her eyes, and not said a single word about how she felt like an extra in a movie starring her sister whenever they went anywhere together. How her gut twisted in shame and embarrassment and envy whenever someone expressed surprise that she wasn’t a carbon copy of either of her older siblings, that she wasn’t a business whiz or a history buff in the making, the life of the party or the belle of the ball. How she wanted someone to look at something she’d accomplished and tell her it was _incredible_ , and neither Robb nor Sansa could’ve ever done anything like it.

How badly she wished her mother had meant everything she’d said earlier.

Lumpy, on the other hand, had nothing to hide, no insecurities to bury deep down inside her. Lumpy could just throw herself into danger and point a camera in the right direction and _know_ people would appreciate it.

Lumpy never closed her eyes and remembered watching helplessly as her brother fell from a height that would kill him in an instant, never worried herself sick wondering if it would be her father or mother or sister possessed next, her friends or her teachers or _herself_ , even.

So Lumpy didn’t scoff or roll her eyes. Lumpy just grinned and wiggled her phone in the air. “Sorry, duty calls!”

She ran off before Gendry and Meera could stop her, knowing they wouldn’t be able to follow her in all this chaos.

What she didn’t know was that someone else followed her, shadowing her as she elbowed her way through the panicked crowd, watching with interest as she hoisted herself up onto the stage and disappeared through the curtains.

* * *

Ghost didn't think he'd ever been more thankful for his impenetrable super suit than he was right then. Without the suit, he’d probably be picking thorns out of his skin for _days_. As it was, he only had a couple of scratches on the parts of his face the mask didn’t cover, and even those he could’ve avoided with ease—if he hadn’t been so out of it.

But he _was_ out of it. And it was all Sansa Stark’s fault.

Every move he made, every leap or twist to dodge the Queen of Thorn’s attacks, he could _feel_ her eyes on him. He remembered the moment they’d locked eyes earlier, how he’d readied himself to counter the insult he just _knew_ she would throw at him, only to recall that he was wearing a mask and she couldn’t possibly know it was him.

It had hit him with all the force of a lightning bolt, the realization that for the first time, Sansa was looking at him and not seeing Jon Snow, her older brother’s best friend and the bane of her existence.

Now he couldn’t stop wondering, _Who is she seeing, then? What does she think of Ghost?_ He thought of everything she’d said to comfort a frightened Rickon up at Winterfell in the midst of a blizzard and had a feeling he already knew.

 _How can she hate Jon Snow but admire Ghost?_ He already knew the answer to that one, too. Jon Snow had been in her life since before she’d even lost her first baby tooth, racing through the halls of her home alongside her big brother, teaching her younger siblings to play sports and video games and sometimes even pranks (usually on her), butting in on all her family vacations; Ghost was just a stranger she saw on a screen, doing things the general public had decided were noteworthy.

 _Unbelievable. I had to literally_ become a superhero _to get her to stop wrinkling her nose at me!_

Even so, knowing she was looking at him with something other than irritation was somewhere between distracting and outright disorienting, and his inability to focus resulted in him making a whole slew of missteps. Admittedly, none of that was _actually_ Sansa’s fault, but Ghost told himself otherwise because feeling like an utter fool wasn’t going to help him win the fight.

_Gods, where’s Lady when you need her to run you over with a giant barrel? Maybe that would knock some sense into me._

What did he get instead? Joffrey Baratheon, yelling terrible advice at him from behind the safety of the ice wall Ghost had created to protect the band members on stage.

“Just get right in her face and knock her out with your sword! She’s only an old woman!”

Ghost ducked under a barrage of thorns and resisted the urge to shout back, “Maybe I’ll knock _you_ out with my sword! You’re only a pile of garbage shaped like a person!”

“Come on, you’re a superhero, for Gods’ sake! If I was out there, I would’ve finished this by now!” Joffrey spared no consideration to Margaery Tyrell, who was standing beside him and protesting everything he’d said about her grandmother in the past ten minutes.

 _Oh, be my guest,_ Ghost thought, tempted to call Baratheon’s bluff and dump him right in the middle of the crossfire. It would be worth it just to finally shut him up. _I’d_ love _to see the Queen of Thorns wipe the floor with you._

 _Really,_ what _does Sansa see in this guy? She deserves better._

He couldn’t worry about that now. He couldn’t worry about any of it. He had to take down the Queen of Thorns before someone got hurt—that ice wall wouldn’t hold up forever. Shae was doing her best to protect her students, but both the off-stage exits had been blocked off, leaving no way for her to get them to safety. Well, they could always leap off the front of the stage, but that would involve running right into the line of fire. He half expected one of the students to try it anyways, and found himself constantly darting warning glances at them.

What he didn’t expect was for someone to leap _onto_ the stage and burst through the curtains.

He took one look at the potato sack covering the person’s head and sighed. Behind him he could hear Sansa groaning. _I think this might be the first time we’ve agreed on anything since we got back from Winterfell._

Ghost sidestepped until he was standing between the Queen and Arya. “Listen, kid,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at her.

She huffed in annoyance, ducking around him so she could film the fight from a better angle. “I’m Lumpy!”

“Right, sure. Listen, Lumpy, go back the way you came and exit the auditorium. _Please._ It’s not safe here.” Ghost stepped in front of her again.

Arya didn’t listen. Of course she didn’t.

“What’s this one calling herself?” she asked, moving further and further away from the edge of the stage.

“The Queen of Thorns.” Ghost dove out of the way of the stems that wanted to strangle him. “Now go and—”

Sansa screamed as they wrapped around Arya’s throat instead, rose petals bursting from the end and engulfing her head.

“Hey! How am I supposed to film like this?” Arya’s muffled voice complained, which Ghost strongly felt should’ve been the least of her concerns. He raised his sword, about to cut her free, only to falter as he realized that one false move could result in him separating her head from her neck.

“Give that back!” he heard Joffrey shout, and a beat later Margaery pleaded, “Sansa, don’t!”

Ghost turned just in time to see Sansa coming at him with a pocket knife in her hand. He opened his mouth to warn her about the vines snaking towards her feet, but she jumped over them before they could trip her up. The second she reached Arya she grabbed for one of the stems around her sister’s neck, ignoring the thorns that sliced into her palm, and held fast as she started sawing through it with the knife.

Ghost watched in alarm as blood dripped down her arm. “I’ll do that, I have gloves—”

“No, I need you to distract her,” she said, not even looking up from her task. “Or better yet, defeat her. The bird infected her concert program—it’s basically a pamphlet, it’s in her left hand, hidden by all those vines and thorns.”

Then her head snapped up, as if she’d suddenly realized she was bossing around a superhero. “I-I mean, I, um…” Her cheeks turned pink. She didn’t stop sawing, though.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he said, and couldn't hold back his smile. _Just can’t help herself, can she?_

He tapped on one of the rose petal’s surrounding Arya’s head. “You alright in there, Lumpy?”

“No, I’m not! I’m missing all the action!”

Ghost exchanged an exasperated glance with Sansa, trying not think about how weird this was; normally it was him and Arya rolling their eyes over something Sansa had said or done.

There was a first time for everything, he supposed.

* * *

For the first time, Lady used her flute not to stop the bad guy but to assist in her escape after the fact. The illusion she’d crafted would have everyone thinking she’d climbed onto the rafters and followed the bird out the skylight, allowing her to slip into the dressing room unseen.

Now all she had to do was wait out her transformation. Then Sansa Stark could meet up with Shae and the others, endure Joffrey’s fury, and—

And pretend she couldn’t still feel Ghost’s feather-light touch on her arm, his eyes boring into hers as he said, _“You deserve better.”_

It had taken her _ages_ to saw through the stems around her sister’s neck, and by that point Ghost had managed to lure the Queen of Thorns through the stage curtains and into the empty seating area below. The moment the threat was gone, Joffrey had stormed out from behind the ice wall and snatched his pocket knife back from Sansa.

Sansa had frozen up, taken every insult he’d hurled at her in silence. She always did.

It had been Arya who’d stood up for her, shouting Joffrey down the moment she’d torn herself free from the rose petals. It had been Arya who’d cradled Sansa’s bleeding hand in hers and picked out the thorns, that potato sack still covering her head, her phone forgotten, and then led Sansa off the stage.

It had been Ghost who’d taken a brief moment of calm in his fight against the Queen to lay a gentle hand on Sansa’s arm and say, _“That Joffrey guy is an asshole. You deserve better_.”

None of it had been Sansa. She hadn’t said a damn word in her own defence.

Lady closed her eyes as a blinding light washed over her, and Sansa kept them closed, trying to hold back tears of frustration.

“ _Sansa?_ ”

She gasped, whirling around, and froze at the sight of Shae in the dressing room doorway, her hands over her mouth, her eyes wide.

She backed up, cursing herself for not locking the door, for not noticing the handle turning.

“Sansa.” Shae approached her slowly, carefully, as if she was a cornered animal liable to snap at any moment. “It’s okay—”

“Close the door!”

Shae did as she said. “It’s okay. I won’t tell anyone, I promise.”

“ _Tell_ anyone?” Sansa asked. She laughed, the sound bordering on hysterical. “Who’d believe you? Lady takes on supervillains, and I can’t even stand up to Joffrey.”

“That’s not true,” said Shae, reaching for her hands, backing off when she flinched away. “I heard you tell him to go to hell not five minutes ago.”

“ _Lady_ told him that.” Because she’d been fed up. Disgusted that she could throw on a mask and go by a different name, and suddenly he was back to trying to impress her, all smiles and charm.

Because Sansa _was_ Lady, and how could one deserve Joffrey’s respect but not the other?

“But you _are_ Lady,” Shae said. Sansa heard the amazement in her voice and realized what a _shock_ this must be for her, to stumble upon this secret without ever expecting it. Yet she’d set all that aside without hesitation to try and comfort Sansa.

“ _You_ are Lady,” she repeated firmly. “Lady is you. And Joffrey Baratheon is a spoiled little bully who doesn’t hold a candle to you, and you know what? He knows it.”

“He knows it?” Sansa didn’t even try to hide her doubt.

“Who do you think your bandmates are impressed with right now?” she asked. “Joffrey, for cowering behind a wall while telling Ghost how to do his job properly, only to be ignored? Or you, for running into danger with only a pocket knife and telling Ghost how to do his job properly, only for him to actually listen to you?”

“I just know how to talk to him, that’s all,” Sansa said, grasping wildly for a way to shrug off the compliment, her face heating up. “I’m his partner…”

“And he clearly thinks the world of you,” said Shae, reaching for her hands again, and this time Sansa let her. “And so do I. So does your sister. So does Margaery, and Brienne, and Septa Mordane. So do your parents and your brothers. You think no one sees your worth? I think we all see it. I think you see it, too.”

Sansa searched her eyes for a hint of insincerity and found none. 

“Maybe I do,” she said slowly. She remembered her argument with Joffrey from earlier, how he’d told her it wasn’t her place to interfere. How she’d interrupted him. How she’d talked back.

“ _You play so quietly, everyone drowns you out anyways,”_ he’d told her once.

“Maybe I do know,” she told Shae now. “Maybe I’ll tell him that.”

_I think I know my place. I think I’ll go tell him that._

_Let him_ try _to drown me out._

* * *

Arya struggled to roll up her potato sack one-handed, her other hand preoccupied with the phone she'd barely taken her eyes off of for the past fifteen minutes. If she took her eyes off it, she might miss a text from her sister.  _I can’t believe she ran off on me!_ Granted, Sansa probably didn’t want anyone to see her cry—and Gods knew that after all the horrible things Joffrey had said to her in front of the entire band, she’d be crying worse than she ever had—least of all her sister. Arya really couldn’t blame her for that. _Even if I knew where she was right now, even if I went to her, what could I possibly say? I’d just make things worse, wouldn’t I?_

Fed up, she gave up on the potato sack and let it fall to the floor, leaving her hand free to hover uncertainly over her touchscreen. _Maybe I should text her. At least that way I won’t have to see her face and I can pretend I’m actually making her feel better._

Her sister was so good at so many things, and somehow, without even trying, she made people feel like the things she was _bad_ at weren’t worth the time of day in the first place. _The things she’s bad at_ _…_ _which just so happen to be the things_ I’m _good at._ It was easy to forget Sansa’s life wasn’t some perfect paradise where the worst thing she had to deal with was her favorite nail polish being out of stock. It was easy to forget that she had her ups and downs just like anyone else. _Maybe more ups than downs_ _…_ _but then again, if I’ve learned anything today, it’s that I don’t know as much about her life as I thought I did._

To be specific, she hadn’t known that Joffrey could be just as awful to Sansa as he was to everyone else. Maybe even worse in some ways, because he’d spent enough time with her to make it _personal_.

As Sansa’s one and only younger sister, Arya prided herself on knowing just how to push Sansa’s buttons, how to get her seething with irritation on the drop of a hat. And Jon, of course, could get under Sansa’s skin like nothing else for reasons Arya would probably never understand. Yet in both cases, Sansa gave as good as she got—sometimes even better.

With Joffrey, though, it was different. With Joffrey, Sansa didn’t fight back. She knew just what to say to make Arya stomp up to her bedroom and slam the door shut so loudly the neighbors could hear, she knew just how to make Jon abandon his brooding silences and argue with her as if nothing in the world existed but the two of them, but with Joffrey? Nothing. Not a peep.

It wasn’t hard for Arya to figure out why. Joffrey didn’t aim to make Sansa scowl and complain like Arya did, to make her turn redder than her hair and throw all her _manners_ and _rules_ out the window the way Jon seemed to. He didn’t back off and apologize if he’d gone too far. No, Joffrey had made it abundantly clear today that his one and only goal was to _hurt_ Sansa, to shove the knife as deep as he could and twist it until she couldn’t stand it anymore.

It was like he’d taken classes on hurting people. In the measly two and a half years he’d known Sansa, he’d somehow picked up on things Arya would never in her wildest dreams have imagined her sister was insecure about, storing them away for future use.

“ _You really_ are _as stupid as everyone thinks you are,”_ he’d said, his mouth twisted in its usual stupid sneer, the one that made Arya want to punch it. _“But you know, I finally figured out why I keep you around! It’s because you’re so_ funny _. It’s_ so funny _to watch you try_ so hard _to make me give a damn about you when you_ know _you’re not worth giving a damn about. You’re like a pathetic three-legged dog Margaery took in because no one else wanted you and she just couldn’t bear to leave you out in the rain.”_

He’d gone on to ‘explain’ how she could have such good grades despite being so ‘stupid.’ At some point, probably around the time he’d claimed her high marks in Willas Tyrell’s literature course last semester had less to do with hard work and more to do with the length of her skirt, Arya had snapped. She couldn’t even remember half the things she’d shouted at him; all she could remember was the look on Sansa’s face. Then Shae had stepped in and threatened to have Joffrey suspended, but he’d only laughed, boasting that the principal would never go against his family.

 _He’s right,_ thought Arya sourly, grinding the potato sack into the floor with her boot, wishing she could do the same to Joffrey. _But that doesn’t mean we can let him get away with this!_

“What did that potato sack ever do to you?”

Arya was about ready to bite the person’s head off until she realized it was Jon. “I’m imagining it’s Joffrey’s head.”

“He’s a piece of shit and shouldn’t be allowed to breathe the same air as Sansa,” Jon said instantly.

The reminder that someone else hated Joffrey almost as much as she did helped Arya calm down a little. “Wait ‘til you hear what he did _this_ time,” she almost said, but then thought better of it. She had a feeling Sansa wouldn’t want Jon to know—wouldn’t want _anyone_ to know.

“What are you doing here?” she asked instead. “I thought you said weren’t going to the concert.”

A long, suspicious pause.

“Right,” Jon said at last. “Yeah. I wasn’t going to go, but your family’s really good at guilt-tripping, you know that? All I’ve heard for the past week was how _disappointed_ they all are, and how they’d be first in line if they could go. Really, you wouldn’t believe how many texts I’ve gotten from Robb like, ‘Wow, I’m so bummed! Wish I could trade places with you!’ Only with most of the vowels missing.”

Arya stared. “You’re _babbling_ , Jon.”

“What? No, I’m not.” She narrowed her eyes at him and he sighed in defeat. “Alright, I— _might_ have gotten into an argument with Sansa earlier. And I might have complained to…one or two people…who might have _kindly advised me_ to go to the concert to, to—to support her as a gesture of good will.”

“So, in other words… You whined about mean ol’ Sansa to _all_ of your friends for the _millionth_ time and they just couldn’t take it anymore, so they told you to suck it up and go apologize,” she said, and when he winced in response, she couldn’t hold back a groan. “Great. Good to know Sansa’s entire day has been a steaming pile of crap instead of just the past hour.”

 _I_ _should_ not _have said that. Now he’s going to ask—_

Lucky for Arya, Jon drew his own conclusions. “She must be really disappointed the concert was ruined. I know she practiced really hard.” As if he couldn't help himself, he muttered under his breath, “Harder than she practiced for our lab assignment…”

Arya glared at him.

“But she’s tough,” he hastened to add, and for all that he hadn’t been able to resist taking a dig at Sansa, she could see he meant what he was saying now. “You know she is. Tougher than I normally give her credit for. Tougher than she gives _herself_ credit for. She’ll bounce back.”

“I guess _you’d_ know better than most people,” she said, unable to resist taking a dig herself. “You’re the one always getting slaughtered by her comebacks.”

Jon’s face contorted strangely like he couldn’t decide whether to smile or pout. “Yeah, she’s pretty good at those. Runs in the family.”

“Flatterer,” she accused him, grinning, and he ruffled her hair.

“Now, let’s go find your sister,” he said. “She can yell at me some more, it’ll make her feel better.”

“What if throwing things at you makes her feel better?”

“Hmmm… Not worried. Her aim’s not that great.”

“I’m gonna tell her you said that.”

“Don’t even _think_ about it.”

They found Sansa in the last place they’d expected: back in the auditorium with Shae and Brienne and Olenna Tyrell, with Margaery and all the rest of her bandmates.

With Joffrey.

Jon looked ready to march onto the stage and then throw Joffrey off of it, but Arya held him back. Not because she disapproved, but because this time, _Sansa_ seemed to be the one refusing to pull her punches.

“You try to hide it, but I know what you’re doing, and I know why. I’ve always known, even when I didn’t want to admit it. You’re so _small_ ,” said Sansa, her words ringing out loud and clear, and Arya couldn’t look away. She couldn’t remember ever seeing her sister like this; it wasn’t just her voice, it was like her very _presence_ was filling up the room, from wall to wall, from floor to ceiling. “And I don’t just mean between your legs. _Everything_ about you is small, and you tear everyone else down like that’ll make you bigger, but it doesn’t.”

Sansa took a step towards Joffrey, and right before Arya’s disbelieving eyes, he took a step _back_.

“All it does is trick people into thinking you’re stronger and smarter and _better_ than they are, but you aren’t. You have a private gym where you can flex your muscles and private tutors who try to drill facts into your head and _money_ to throw around like it’s nothing, but none of it makes you strong enough to stand on your own or smart enough to think for yourself. And you know what? I don’t _care_ what you think anymore—about yourself, about _me_.”

Sansa was a scant few inches taller than Joffrey, yet she _towered_ over him now like a skyscraper.

“I can stand on my own and think for myself, and what I think—what I _know_ —is that I’m stronger and smarter and I’m going to accomplish more in this _one year_ than you will in the next twenty, thirty, _sixty_. You’re going to be old and grey and your voice will come out quieter than mine ever has, and no one will be around to hear you. No one will care to listen.”

She spun on her heel and walked away. Her bandmates watched her go, their mouths hanging open in shock, but Shae and Brienne looked _proud_ —almost as proud as Arya was.

By the time Joffrey remembered how to speak, Sansa had already made her way off-stage and down the stairs. Predictably, the first thing he did was start yelling after her, throwing out what must’ve been every swear word and insult he knew, as if that was all it’d take to make Sansa crumble in on herself, to make her come running back with a thousand apologies and pleas for forgiveness.

Instead, Sansa straightened her shoulders and lifted her head even higher, ignoring him.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Olenna Tyrell finally shouted over Joffrey, clearly having reached the limits of her patience. “The women have important matters to discuss right now, so either shut your mouth or take your little temper tantrum somewhere else!”

Joffrey instantly shut up, possibly because the person shouting at him had spent most of the past hour on a rampage, trying to strangle everyone in sight with vines or stab them in the eye with thorns. Whatever the reason, Arya was grateful. There was only so much she and Jon could take before they lost it and got themselves expelled for shoving Joffrey’s head down a toilet.

Just as Arya was about to suggest to Jon that they go meet her sister in the parking lot, Sansa happened to glance in their direction. It seemed to take her a moment to process who she was looking at, but the moment she did, she switched gears and made a beeline for them.

Or rather, for Arya.

“ _Please_ get me out of here,” she whispered, latching onto Arya’s arm with both hands. Hands that were shaking almost as badly as an old rundown house in a hurricane, Arya noted. “I can’t believe I just did that. Did I really just do that? Oh Gods, I’m going to throw up.”

That was _not_ the kind of thing Sansa would normally admit to her, and it was especially not the kind of thing Sansa would normally admit to her in front of _Jon_ , of all people. _I’m not even sure she’s noticed him yet._ _Either way_ _…_ Arya led her sister out to the parking lot, Jon trailing after them wordlessly. Maybe it was just her imagination, but he looked a little awestruck.

Away from prying eyes, Sansa seemed to give herself permission to drop her guard.

“Oh my Gods,” she said, slumping back against the wall, relying on it to keep her upright. “Did that really just happen? That was all just a hideous nightmare, right? I’ll wake up any minute now and find out none of it ever happened.”

“No, it was all real, and it was _awesome_!” Arya burst out, not even trying to contain her glee. “ _You_ were awesome! It was like you kicked him in the balls, tossed him in a sack with an angry badger, and then dumped him in a tank filled with saltwater in the middle of Great Sept square for everyone to gawk at!”

“Meanwhile, the worst _I’ve_ ever gotten from you is a bowling ball dropped on my foot,” said Jon, but his tone was too lighthearted— _admiring_ , even—to take him seriously. “All this time you’ve been going easy on me! I thought what we had was _special_ , Sansa.”

“Stop saying I dropped a bowling ball on your foot! I only _threatened_ to!” Sansa went from looking ready to hurl to looking ready to kill in record time, and Arya couldn’t quite decide if that was an improvement or not.

“Even worse. I’ve never felt so patronized in all my life.” 

Clearly, watching Sansa shred Joffrey to pieces had put Jon in a good mood, just like it had Arya—enough that he was actually joking around instead of throwing out sulky retorts every time Sansa spoke.

“If you really want to be tossed in a sack with an angry badger, I can arrange that.”

 _It’s like they’re still in Kindergarten,_ Arya thought, torn between amusement and disgust. _Pulling each other’s pigtails on the playground every recess, trying to be the centre of each other’s attention 24/7._ But at least they’d made up, in their own way. Arya had no idea what their argument earlier had been about, and she doubted she’d ever find out. With any luck, Sansa and Jon wouldn’t even remember it come tomorrow.

What really mattered was that Sansa was done letting Joffrey walk all over her. _Jon was right about her bouncing back._ _He was right about her being tough. And he was right that I knew she had it in her_ _all along_ _._

Arya thought of all the nagging doubts in herself she tried to push to the back of her mind everyday, thought of her mother’s voice on the phone earlier, tight with anxiety and anger and _fear_. Thought of how everything that had happened with the Kingslayer had left their entire family reeling, had left Bran and Rickon open to being possessed.

Thought of how, despite all of that, life hadn’t come to a stand still. The Starks had carried on, going to school and work, eating and talking and _laughing_. And she knew they would keep doing that, no matter what happened. They would keep bouncing back, all of them, no matter what anyone else said or did.

Arya didn’t know who was behind the attacks, but she knew that someday they would get what was coming to them, just like Joffrey had.

And she would be there, filming every second of it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been operating under the assumption that the Common Tongue is not actually English with a different name, but a different language entirely, and the only reason the books are written in English is that making up a language is really, really hard. However, it's occurred to me recently that this might not the case, and if it isn't, then it would be silly for Sansa to be unable to read a book written in what is essentially her native language. 
> 
> This plotline would work just fine if I used the Old Tongue or High Valyrian instead, so I might change it - the only reason I chose the Common Tongue in the first place is that I figured the most widespread language in the original Westeros would be the one that survived the longest, as well as the one that people in the current Westeros would most be most interested in learning.
> 
> Also, just to be clear, Jon is not under the impression that Sansa has a crush on Ghost. He just thinks she's a fan.


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